


Coupon To Be Redeemed

by saruma_aki



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Billy-centric, Canonical Child Abuse, Character Study, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, Minor Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Redemption, Slow Build, Smoking, Sort Of, The Upside Down, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-02-06 12:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 41,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12817467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saruma_aki/pseuds/saruma_aki
Summary: Curiosity killed the cat—Dark skies, crackling in the air, a shriek that echoes in the air.He doesn't think, doesn't breathe, keeps his eyes trained to the crack under the door, his fingers tight around his weapon. He thinks of flaming hair, of warm brown eyes, of strong fingers and rough palms. He thinks of false warmth and biting cold. He thinks about how he can't really feel his feet and how he's fairly certain he has lost feeling in his fingers. He thinks of white hot rage and nauseating regret. He thinks of panicked, awe-filled eyes and the crunch of snow under his feet as he wishes it was sand.He thinks of doing better.—But satisfaction brought it back.ORIn which Billy does his best to change while simultaneously having his world turned upside down.





	1. o1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is my first time delving into this fandom—just a heads up.
> 
> Now, I can already feel people taking issue with the pace I've set for this story and I am going to say it now, once and for all. The pace I take in regards to Billy and his redemption is the pace someone I know who went through something similar to what Billy went through took, along with the speed those around them took (in this case, Max). So before anyone gets high and mighty on me about how they feel it's too fast, just know that this is actually the speed it took for someone. For some people it takes longer and others it's shorter. This is the speed I chose because it suited my needs best and because I had a first hand account of it. Obviously some things are different (hello, supernatural shit over here), but that's that. So, fair warning, I guess.
> 
> Heads up on the time-skips, too. They make it seem like less time has passed than there actually has been.
> 
> Also, these are relatively short chapters because this is my first time writing these characters. My next venture might be longer. Who knows?
> 
> Alright, I think that's it. Enjoy!

Coming to was an unfortunate experience he would rather never repeat. It wasn’t so much the being conscious part that sucked, although that sucked a lot, in his book. What sucked most was the grogginess that clung to his mind like cobwebs, the heaviness to his limbs, and the struggle that ensued as he tried to pry his eyelids open.

His memory wasn’t as foggy as he expected it to be as he woke up from whatever drug had been coursing through his system—probably due to the fact that he hadn’t been fully knocked out by whatever it had been—and he thought hazily that he was most certainly going to kill Max for that little stunt, threat to his balls or not. You didn’t just do that kind of shit. What if he had been allergic to whatever the fuck she had injected him with? He could’ve died.

Teeth gritting, he shoved himself to sit up, feeling the soreness in his jaw and in his knuckles, feeling the tackiness of the blood staining his upper lip. Running his tongue along his teeth, lips pursing, he swallowed the metallic taste, shoving himself up onto his feet. The momentary imbalance was more internally felt than externally, too used to feeling temporarily off-kilter, and he moved over to the kitchen, fingers idly pressing into the bruise developing on his jaw, fingers skating up to brush over the bruise he knew was developing around his eye.

He didn’t even want to imagine the amount of shit he might end up getting from his dad for it. The man knew he hadn’t left that bruised up. Gritting his teeth, he spit into the sink, shoving open the tap and cupping the water in his hands, splashing his face, rinsing his mouth out and letting the liquid run over his stinging knuckles, tongue running along the edges of his teeth.

He hoped there was some sort of ice in this house because he had absolutely no desire to let the swelling on his face get worse than it needed to be. Closing the tap and wiping his face and hands free of excess water with a dish towel, he turned to the fridge, slinging the towel over his shoulder.

Opening the fridge was like resigning himself to his fate, at this point, a tired sigh escaping him at the body that flopped out.

Seriously, talk about one of the _worst_ days ever.

Crouching, he poked the fabric covered _thing_ with his bruised knuckles, watching as the—was that the head?—lolled to the side, opening slightly, letting him see a hint of the razor teeth inside. “What the fuck have you gotten yourself into, Maxine?” he grumbled, nose crinkling in disgust even as he reached out further and forced the maws of the thing open, grimacing at the flower petal head and rows of long knives, the coolness of the body.

Holding back any bile that threatened to come up, he forced the petals closed, throwing the blanket around the creature before getting up and looking in the fridge. Resigning himself to no ice being in there, he looked around the kitchen, looking at the contents that typically would occupy a fridge scattered across the counters.

Tapping his fingers along the things, he settled on what seemed to be a still fairly frozen bag of peas and pressed that to his eye, a grin taking over his lips as he saw a six pack of beers lying lopsided on the counter, tearing out one and moving to sit on the couch, looking at the pictures around him.

He attributed his lack of freak-out to the drugs, or maybe it was how absolutely done he felt, the bone deep exhaustion he was currently feeling—the rage that had been propelling all but completely evaporated at this point. All he felt was sore and powerless, the backs of his eyes burning. He took a swig of the beer and pressed his eyes shut.

The peas were mercifully cold and numbing on his eye.

When he opened his eyes again, he looked over at the creature lying on the ground in front of the fridge, covered in a blanket. The fuck was that thing, he wondered. He then wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him to ask that question before. That would’ve been a more logical reaction.

Frankly, he wondered if he even cared.

Pursing his lips as he took another swig of the beer, he pushed himself to his feet, wandering back over to the creature. Fuck, it was gross, he noted idly as he looked at it, holding the corner of the fabric away from the body. He would consider the preservation of food more important than the preservation of the body of this thing, but those kids were weird, completely and utterly creepy—potentially insane, he added, looking at the space around him.

Not like he was one to talk.

Fuck, he couldn’t even really remember what he did really, the images hazy in his mind.

Sighing, he drained the last of the beer, shoving the fridge door open, letting the blanket fall. Whatever the thing was, he was fairly certain he wasn’t supposed to have seen it. And, as much as he didn’t care for what he was or wasn’t supposed to do, he had no desire to get involved with whatever shit fest this was.

Hoisting the creature into his arms, he shoved it into the fridge, hooking his foot around the fridge door and kicking it shut the second the _thing_ was completely out of his arms.

He felt distinctly gross.

He grabbed another beer and plopped himself on the couch to wait.

 

 

 

When they came back, Billy was on the porch, sitting on the railing, legs swinging, and cigarette between his lips. The sight of his Camaro did little to calm him down, if anything riling him up as he took in the state of it, heart beating fast, and he took another drag of his cigarette, jumping off of the railing.

He watched them get out of the car, flicking the rest of the fag onto the ground, grinding his heel into it, thumbs hooked in his pockets, running his tongue over the edges of his teeth. As they unloaded, he took in how they looked, the harrowed expressions, the glimmer of excitement in their eyes, and the slump of relief in their shoulders.

“Maxine,” he called, marching over, easily bypassing the kids, tearing his keys from the red head’s fingers, “get in the car.”

“No,” she hissed, glaring up at him and he leaned down, towering over her, his eyes cold.

“Get,” he glared, teeth clenching, “in the car.”

He didn’t dare put a hand on her, not with Harrington right there with that bat with nails, but he ended up not having to, Max’s glare intensifying, her jaw clenching before she was turning and marching to the car, getting into the shotgun, slamming the door shut.

Sparing none of them a glance, he got into the car, revving the engine, flicking the radio on and tearing out of the driveway, car careening dangerously, the screams of alarm from the other kids only barely reaching his ears before he was on the road and unable to give a shit.

 

 

 

Billy isn’t really sure how Max got to school the next day, but he didn’t really care, eyes fixed on the ceiling, his ribs aching and muscles trembling. His mind felt slow and his limbs felt heavy, tongue thick in his mouth. He craved a cigarette or a drink, but he didn’t feel like moving, didn’t really feel like breathing.

He wasn’t even sure if there was school.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he sat up, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, letting out a slow, measured breath through his mouth. His body felt warm with sleep, but Billy could feel the cold inside of him, how it made him shiver and made his limbs stutter to move, helpless against it.

Grunting, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, planting his feet on the ground, walking over to the table where his mirror sat, snatching up the calendar and a cigarette, idly glancing at the date as he tugged one of the sticks into his mouth and lit it up, taking a slow drag.

So, it was Saturday. Go figure.

He let the smoke fill his lungs, felt it warm his insides, the cold returning as he exhaled. The clock on the wall said that it was roughly eight in the morning, something he automatically scowled at, letting the smoke escape past his lips as he tossed the calendar back onto the table. “What to do? What to do?” he muttered to himself, walking to his window and peeking out of it.

He could go outside.

He cast a glance back.

Or he could stay in bed.

He thought of that creature that tumbled out of the Byers’ fridge. He thought of how Max stole his car and how those kids had all piled in, thought of how they all got out, looking tired, smudged with dirt, relieved about something he didn’t know about.

Curiosity hadn’t been something he had indulged in ages, and he hesitated to do so now.

He glanced back at his bed.

The cigarette was ground into the ash tray as he passed it.

 

 

 

The tire tracks were hard to follow, but Billy had time to kill, if nothing else, so he drove as close to the Byers’ house as he dared before following the tracks that were etched into the road where the car had torn out of the Byers’ driveway. The tracks stopped after the turn and he followed the road until he came across the next ones etched into the concrete, taking that turn. It had to be the slowest he had ever driven on the roads in Hawkins, but he didn’t want to miss one of the tracks by being careless.

The next turn went off the road and onto dirt, into a pumpkin patch, he guessed, going off of the broken wooden sign that crunched under the wheels a bit even as Billy did his best to avoid it. The last thing he needed was a flat tire. He followed the tracks scoured into the dirt where they paused at what seemed to be a hole in the ground.

“What the fuck is wrong with these kids?” he muttered, turning off the ignition and getting out of the car, feeling the dirt shift beneath him as he walked to the edge of the ditch, looking over into it. He debated whether or not to continue, but his legs made the decision for him, hesitantly walking over the edge of the crater and to the cavity at the center.

The hole opened up to nothingness below and he frowned, looking around. Marching back to his car, he pursed his lips in contemplation. It didn’t seem like a good idea to entertain his curiosity at the moment, but what if it was something dangerous? Max had gone and gotten involved in something without thinking of the consequences, _as per fucking usual_ , and if something happened to her, Billy would be the one to pay for it, not her. He let out a small groan of resignation before jogging to where the broken wooden sign advertising the pumpkin patch laid; taking the longest of the pieces, the piece that had originally held the sign up, and the second longest piece with it, he jogged back to his car.

In the glove compartment there was a roll of duct tape and he grabbed it, wrapping a long strip of it around the middle of the wooden piece, sliding the wood behind the front wheels of his car, rolling out the strip of tape to the mouth of the hole and a bit further. Wrapping the end of the tape around the middle of the second piece of wood, he dropped it into the hole, going back and applying a second layer of tape to the original strip connecting the two pieces of wood.

It was definitely some serious improvising, but Billy really wasn’t feeling going back to his house or to a hardware store to get some rope. Grabbing the flashlight in the glove compartment—because you never know when something could happen to your car—he took a deep breath.

“Alright, let’s see what this is about,” he whispered to himself, shaking out his limbs even as he moved to the edge of the hole, placing the flashlight between his teeth, grabbing onto the wood and swinging himself down, pleased when the tape held strong, dropping down onto to the ground, the wooden piece swinging by his head.

Clicking on the flashlight, he let it shine around him, staring at what appeared to be a tunnel. This was absolutely ridiculous and insane, he told himself, but moved down the tunnel nonetheless, tucking his nose under the collar of his shirt, the smell strange and unpleasant.

The ground was firm beneath him, but every few steps, something squelched or there was something protruding from the ground. Vines, he assumed, going from what he could make out with the light from the flashlight.

And it was ridiculously gross, the walls shining with what seemed to be a viscous substance he was nowhere near dumb enough to touch, the walls of the tunnel uneven, but not seeming to be man-made.

He hated how he sounded like some sort of conspiracy theorist in his own head.

And then, lying on the ground, there was the creature.

Well, maybe not _the_ creature, but apparently one severely similar to the one from the fridge, seeming to be dead next to what seemed to be a Three Musketeers candy bar wrapper.

_What even was this anymore?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments below! <3


	2. o2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More characters are in this chapter! Fair warning, but I like to do time-skips.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!

“You touch the radio, you lose the hand,” Billy hissed, gripping Max’s wrist tightly, one hand still solid on the wheel. She jerked it away and he could see her glaring at him out of the corner of his eyes.

“You’re such a dick,” she muttered and he looked at her, running his tongue over his bottom lip as he looked over.

“What was that?”

She slouched in her seat, looking determinedly out the window, arms crossed over her chest.

He firmly shoved any twinge of guilt down, placing his second hand back on the wheel, clenching his teeth. An argument with ‘daddy dearest’ had occurred last night and the resulting rage had still not left him. His hand ached from how hard he had hit it against the trunk of a tree when he had escaped into the night. His sternum still throbbed from the hit his father had bestowed upon it and it was like he could still feel the man’s fingers pressing into his clavicle and the sting of his hand on his cheek.

He wished he knew how to control the rage, how to not be so bitter, how to not feel like he was falling apart at the seams, so full of anger and pain that the only way to save himself was to hurt someone else.

“You’re hanging out with your friends today, right?” he finally asked, swerving into the school parking lot and into an available space, putting it in park and looking over at Max, one hand still on the wheel, the other resting in his lap. Max continued to glare out of the window. “ _Max_ ,” he sighed, barely resisting the urge to scrub a hand over his face, but he let the back of his head hit the seat.

Fuck, why was this so _difficult_?

He dug his thumbnail into the juncture of the first knuckle of his index finger, taking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly. God, he needed a smoke—he needed a _break_.

Max probably needed one, too.

He determinedly pushed that thought away, nowhere near the mental state needed to deal with the implications of that thought.

“Yeah, I am,” Max finally relented, and the short answer was like a small stitch into the seam of his being, helping him keep his cool just a bit longer, _just a little bit longer._

“Till when,” he sighed, finger tapping on the steering wheel.

“I don’t know,” she bit out before finally moving to grab her bag and board and get out of the car.

“Find a way to get home, then,” he called to her as she got out of the car, “or we’re going to have problems.”

“Fuck you,” was her response as she slammed the door shut.

He watched her walk away, watched how she threw her board on the ground and got on, skating to the school entrance. He watched the Sinclair kid go up to her with a bright smile, the Henderson kid right after him.

He felt the bitterness build in him and he looked away, hand gripping the wheel tight, heart thundering. He wanted to bang the wheel, wanted to hit something, wanted to _scream_. That stitch loosened and broke, and he felt like he was unraveling. Why was it that she got to make friends? Why was it that she could go through life not feeling like the world was crumbling around her? Why was it that she could be so carefree, living with an idea of parents who weren’t that bad to her?

Why did _she_ get to have that?

He looked at his hand on the steering wheel, took in the whiteness in his knuckles and the pressure of the wheel against the heat palm of his hand, the soft vibrations of the engine under his fingertips mixed with the hum of the stereo. He looked at his other hand, at the scraped up knuckles, long fingers, let them curl into a tight fist against his thigh.

Pulling out a cigarette, he let it rest against his bottom lip as he lit it up, taking a smooth drag, letting his head roll back to rest against the cushion, tapping his fingers idly on the wheel in time to the beat of the music.

“Hargrove,” a voice called from beside him and he let his eyes slide open, ignoring the tension that immediately coiled in his muscles, blowing out a cloud of smoke into Harrington’s face, watching the way the male’s eyes squinted against it and how he sniffed a little bit, looking awkward and like he would rather be anywhere else. At least his face was healing, the bruises yellowing and fading, his nose seeming to not be broken.

He still couldn’t believe it had already reached the end of November.

“Harrington, what a pleasant surprise,” he responded with, lips curling into a grin, tongue running along the edges of his teeth even as he took another drag, letting the smoke fill his lungs, letting the false warmth rest in his chest before being exhaled out.

“Yeah, yeah, listen,” Harrington muttered, eyes squinted as he looked to the side, towards the school entrance, and Billy cocked an eyebrow, reaching over to turn off the stereo of the car, mourning silently having to cut off a good song in the middle. “Am I driving your sister home again today? Is that a thing I’m doing from now on or something?”

Billy felt a muscle in his jaw twitch even as he let his lips remain curled in a semi-smirk, pulling his bottom lip into his mouth for a second as he got out of the car, not batting an eye when the door hit Harrington’s thigh, leaning against the vehicle for a second.

“Step-sister,” he corrected blandly, flicking the rest of the fag at Harrington before turning with a parting smirk and walking away.

He didn’t understand why Harrington thought he would know. He and Max didn’t talk much, although a part of him wanted to change that. He probably wouldn’t be able to, though—not until he figured out how to control the rage that kept bubbling up inside of him, the same rage that blurred everything up and had him take things too far. Like, Harrington’s face, for one.

He and Max didn’t talk and, until that changed, Billy would grit his teeth and take the beating that would be in store for him courtesy of Neil for not being the one driving Max home and for Max being late and for the weather not being what Neil had wanted it to be.

He would just add that to the list of things Max didn’t think of the consequences of—because, of course, she lived in a world where her parents were actually there for her.

He snorted.

What a fucking joke.

 

 

 

“Ms. Byers,” Billy greeted idly as he walked into the store, listening to the bell ring lightly. “How are you today?”

The woman blinked, seeming a bit jittery as always, looking up from whatever it was she was sorting to flash him a hesitant smile that he did his best to return, but the day had been long and he was pretty sure it came out a bit strained.

“Back again, Billy?”

He gave a slight chuckle along with a helpless shrug of his shoulders. “Ice melts fast,” he responded with, walking to the fridge at the front of the store and tugging out a bag, waiting for Joyce to walk to the counter to ring him up.

“I can’t imagine what you need all this ice for,” she said, tone amicable, but the words set him on edge, made his chest tighten, made his lungs seize. “Some sort of school thing?”

He remembered the Byers’ boys, how the kids were friends with Max and Harrington, both who could confirm or deny whether or not it was a school thing. “More of a personal project,” he responded, pulling on a soft smile, teeth sinking into his bottom lip briefly as he let his gaze flicker up to meet hers. “Science and all that,” he added.

“Oh, you’re into science?” Joyce commented as he handed over the money, the price memorized at this point. “My son’s really into all of that stuff.”

“Jonathan or Will,” Billy asked, more to keep up appearances than actually caring. He had seen Jonathan, although he had never spoken with him, and was fairly certain the guy wasn’t into science. Besides, Will hung out with Max and her friends and all of them were into science. Although, who knew? Harrington hung out with them, too, so maybe Jonathan was into science.

“Will,” she replied, a soft, fond smile overcoming her face as she paused in ringing him up, her gaze distant. “He’s always been a big fan of all of that. Him and his friends, the whole lot of them are into it—very curious bunch.”

He could only smile helplessly in response, his stomach twisting and skin tingling uncomfortably, something that felt dangerously like sadness creeping into him and spreading, and he fought to push it down, to not acknowledge it, to not let it get to him.

It didn’t matter that Neil _never_ got or had that fond look when it came to Billy. It didn’t matter that Susan would most certainly never get that expression on her face, instead watching meekly whenever Neil lost his temper and would lie in on Billy, only the faintest protest on her lips. It didn’t matter that Susan most certainly looked fond whenever she looked at Max, or that Neil looked that way when he looked at Susan. It didn’t matter that Neil would smile at Max, even if he remained the step-father that would never quite be allowed to get too close to her on Max’s part. It didn’t matter that Susan would tell Max how pretty she was, how wonderful she was, how talented, how amazing, how brave. It didn’t matter that Neil would praise her and tell her that her skateboard skills were improving, that her grades were great, that he was proud of her.

It didn’t matter.

_It didn’t matter._

“Your sister is good for them, brings in a bit more realism. Although,” Joyce leaned closer, a playful glint to her eyes, “I think they’re slowly managing to convert her.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re not very devoted, then,” he responded, grinning, accepting the change as she handed it to him, letting his fingers curl into the plastic of the bag. The pendant around his neck seemed to heat in response, but he knew that was just his mind projecting. “Thank you, again.”

“No problem,” she responded.

He could feel her eyes on him as he walked out, and the smile disappeared from his face as the doors shut behind him.

 

 

 

“Man, how did you manage to hit your elbow that hard,” Dustin muttered, looking at the bruise that Steve couldn’t quite fully see, but could most definitely feel, as he handed over an ice pack and a dish towel, watching him press it to the tender skin.

“Hargrove,” Steve groaned in response. “Guy has absolutely no chill when it comes to basketball.”

“Or anything,” Mike scoffed, looking over at Max who had a frown on her face. “No offense.”

She shrugged, giving a weak smile. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

“What? Nah, nah, its part of the sport—I’m fine.” He gave as much of a reassuring grin as he could muster and tried not to think about how Billy had looked distracted, actually, and the ice in his eyes as he moved, no taunts spilling forth—his focus not even on the game, but still able to make ridiculously flagrant shots that always succeeded.

And still able to knock Steve flat on his back, apparently, he remembered as his elbow gave a pitiful twinge of pain.

They all looked at him, brows furrowed and lips pursed.

“Oh, come on, don’t look at me like that,” he whined, pushing himself away from the counter. “Come on, aren’t you guys supposed to be teaching me how to play that dungeons game or whatever? Come on, show me.”

He was grateful that the reminder of the board game was enough to get them to brighten and start talking again, Lucas shoving him towards the stairs that led down to the basement, all of them chattering excitedly.

He was seriously an awesome babysitter.

He was also, apparently, seriously bad at Dungeons and Dragons and when he dropped Dustin off, the kid shoved a manual of the game into his hands. “At least get to know who the creatures are,” Dustin had told him, trying to use a sage voice, but it really just made Steve grin in amusement, giving a mock salute as the kid got out of the car, watching him go inside.

Max moved up to the front seat when Dustin entered his house, setting her bag and her board between her feet. “Sorry you have to drive me home again,” she said, looking over at him, her flaming hair falling like a curtain around her face.

Steve smiled at her, pulling back onto the road, tapping his fingers on the wheel. “’s fine, I don’t mind.”

 

 

 

Fuck, he hadn’t meant to bring it back.

He _really_ hadn’t.

How was he supposed to know that it liked the cold?

How was he supposed to know that the fucking power cable would fall and hit the metal box he had been keeping the creature in?

How was he supposed to know it would electrocute the _thing_ and restart whatever qualified as a heart in it?

How was he supposed to know it could even be brought back when it had been dead for, _at least_ , three weeks now?

How was he supposed to know any of that?

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he hissed, marching into the grocery store, trying not to let his annoyance show as he headed for the candy section in the store, grabbing a bag before heading to the counter, smiling at the cashier, an older gentleman—Liam, his tag read.

“Treating a sweet tooth,” the man joked, ringing him up and Billy gave a small smile, huffing out a breathy laugh.

“Of sorts,” he responded, shrugging his shoulders as he handed over the money, thinking about how grateful he was to have gotten a job outside of town considering how much money he had been spending recently—the rest hidden from Neil so that the man couldn’t take it. He had to have a way to get away the second he could. “Have a good day.”

“You, too,” the man called after him as Billy accepted the change, grabbing the bag and walking away—all the while, he hoped his hunch was right. If the nougat that had been by the creature when he had first found him was anything to go by, he might be right.

He just needed enough time to find out how to kill it.

That was all he needed.

He briefly considered the bat Max had threatened him with, entertained the idea of making one of his own, but it wouldn’t make sense. The creature had no discernible wounds when he had found it, so clearly that bat would be all but useless in killing it. Keeping it at a distance? Maybe—but certainly not ensuring it wouldn’t get up again. It might just anger it.

In the car, he threw the bag into the passenger’s seat, resting his head on the wheel, hands gripping it tightly, letting out a slow breath, eyes squeezed firmly shut.

_Fuck_ , what was he supposed to do now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to tell me what you thought in the comments below!


	3. o3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, sometimes these chapters are hard to write (even though they're not very long).

“Billy.”

He smiled, refused to show how uncomfortable he felt, choked down the irritation that rose in him, instead looking at the woman before him with a pleasant expression—as much of one as he could muster, anyway.

“What a pleasure,” the woman smiled.

“The pleasure’s all mine, Mrs. Wheeler,” he responded, following her in as she opened the door wider, moving towards the kitchen as she closed the door, listening to the sound of laughter coming from downstairs—the basement, he presumed.

“Are you here to pick up your sister?”

He nodded, leaning against the kitchen counter, fighting back the urge to correct her— _step-sister_ —focusing on the feeling his pendant sliding across his chest, foot tapping soundlessly against the floor. “Yeah,” he responded, smiling as Mrs. Wheeler slid over a plate with Ho Hos, grabbing one and taking a bite, figuring he might as well get something good out of the deal, especially when Neil and Susan had asked for a family dinner out of the blue.

“Steve usually drives her home,” Mrs. Wheeler commented off-handedly and Billy nodded, licking a stray crumb of chocolate from the corner of his mouth. He ignored how her eyes followed the motion, swallowing the bite.

He was well-aware of the fact that Harrington tended to drive Max home. The bruise on his bicep from where his father’s foot had recently connected was a reminder of that.

“Yeah, it’s very nice of him. But I have to cut it short today, unfortunately,” he sighed, not even having to play up the regret he felt because he honestly wished he didn’t have to cut it short. He wished he didn’t have to cut it short because cutting it short meant something came up and something coming up meant that it involved Billy and Max and anything that involved both of them most likely involved their parents and the last thing Billy wanted was to be with them.

“Well, you can head down and get her, if you want,” she told him, but something in her voice told him she didn’t really want him to go. It made him move faster, if anything else, giving her a smile as he grabbed another one of the log treats before moving to the basement door.

The stairs creaked slightly as he walked down them, only going halfway, leaning against the railing and looking at the children sitting around the table. He pushed down the bitterness. Now was not a good time for it. He was _trying_ , trying to do better, trying to not hurt anyone, trying to be better.

He knew there was something wrong with him, was aware of that fact, but he couldn’t seem to stop, didn’t know how to, didn’t know how to stop the rage. So, instead, he had been bottling it up, shoving it down, trying not to let it out, but it only made the feeling of falling apart even worse, the rage taking up so much space inside of him that it felt like the stitching was coming undone, the fabric tearing—like some of _him_ was being pushed out through the tears to make space for the rage.

“Max,” he called to her, voice sharp and cutting through the laughter. Mrs. Wheeler came down the steps and stood by him and he couldn’t help but notice the disturbed look that came across the Wheeler boy’s face, probably freaked out with how his mother stared at Billy. He could feel the heat of her gaze, like a brand, and it made him hold back a twitch, meeting Max’s gaze with his own. “Time to go,” he said, expression tightly controlled and booking no argument.

“Why?” Max responded with because, of course, she would.

His smile became strained. “Family dinner,” he bit out, biting the inside of his cheek.

She stiffened, setting down the dices she had been rolling around in her hands, pushing out her chair. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” she told the others, grabbing her bag and her board from where they were leaning against the wall and moving to the stairs, ignoring the curious and somewhat sad looks the others were sending her. He watched her walk past him and Mrs. Wheeler on the stairs; muscle in his jaw twitching as he let out a slow breath.

His eyes met Harrington’s for a brief second before he, too, was going up the stairs.

He wanted a drink.

 

 

 

_Responsibility…_

“She’s your _responsibility_ , understand?”

Fuck, his head hurt.

“Do you understand?”

It hurt _so much_.

“Answer me!”

“Yes, sir,” he croaked, and _fuck_ , his throat hurt, too.

“I don’t want a single thing going wrong while we’re gone. Not one thing, you hear?”

His eyes burned and his head throbbed, making everything so much hazier, so much more distorted. “Yes, sir,” he got out again. His back hurt from hitting the ground and he was pretty sure he had a bruise on his hip from his father falling on top of him to grab at his throat, to keep him in place when he delivered a blow.

“Good.”

The spit hit his chest, sticky and vile, making him feel distinctly gross everywhere, the feeling almost enough to not let him process the pain of the blow delivered to his side. _Almost_ , but the pain filtered through.

The ground was cold beneath him, cold and hard, the seasons changing, snow ready to fall.

“She’s your _responsibility_.”

Fuck, he hated that word.

 

 

 

“How long did they say they’d be gone,” Max mumbled and she watched Billy’s hands tap at the wheel, the guy mainly driving with his thigh, the muscle pressed against the bottom of the object. The only relief was that Billy’s hands didn’t get off the wheel for longer than a few milliseconds, always ready to grab it. She guessed it was a good thing that at least her step-brother seemed to have a vague idea of the fact that the speed he drove at was dangerous.

“Two weeks—maybe a month,” he responded, the corners of his lips quirking upwards just slightly.

It was weird to see him so happy about something, something so small, but apparently it was enough to get the guy to smile, even if it was just a bit.

They remained quiet the rest of the way, Billy jamming out to AC/DC as he drove, tongue running along the edges of his teeth.

Max returned her eyes to the window, watching the trees go by. She didn’t feel all that happy about their parents leaving for a month. A month alone with Billy didn’t sound very fun. He had mellowed out some, maybe, after that night at the Byers’ house, although Max wasn’t sure if it was so much her threat to him that did it or the fact that he was spending more and more time away from home, limiting how much anger he’d let out on her.

Whatever it was, she was pretty sure the calm’s days were numbered.

And that scared her.

She had new friends, now, had places to go, had people to talk to, but none of them would be able to stand up to Billy. She wasn’t even sure the Chief would be able to stand up to him, and she had already watched Steve go down against Billy, so that wasn’t an option.

“Hey.”

She jolted, head whipping around to look at Billy, meeting his tired gaze. When did it get so tired? Looking back out the window quickly, she blinked in surprise. When did they get to school? “You can’t hang out with your friends tonight.”

She glared, brows furrowing, chin jutting out. “Why not,” she hissed, fingers curling in the straps of her bag, ready to storm out of the car.

“Because,” Billy sighed, tongue poking at his cheek for a second, “we need to talk,” he finished.

“No, we don’t.”

“Max!”

She flinched involuntarily at how his voice raised, eyes wide, and she saw him wince as well, watched him take a deep breath, watched his fingers flex on the steering wheel.

“We need to talk, okay? We have two weeks, minimum.”

“For what,” Max choked out, eyes wild, and she could feel her heart hammering in her chance. “We don’t talk, Billy. We never have.”

“Can you just work with me here?”

She pressed herself back into the seat at the sight of the rage that lit up the male’s eyes. She watched him take a deep breath, took one herself, trying to stop the shaking in her hands.

“Fuck,” he sighed, and she watched his fingers flex against the wheel, his head dropping towards his chest for a moment. “Look, I’m trying to—I don’t know—fix this? Or something,” he breathed out, and Max blinked, staring at her step-brother like he had grown another head. She briefly wondered if that was possible considering the things she had seen now, but she pushed that thought aside. “So, come here when school is done, okay?”

She looked at him, really looked. He looked exhausted, his jaw set, his normally bright eyes dull. His lips weren’t twisted into a smirk or a malicious grin—her mind flashed briefly to the sight of the small upward quirk of his lips earlier—but were pulled down slightly in a small frown.

“Okay,” she found herself responding, swallowing thickly. She’s not sure what made her say yes, not sure what drove her to do so, but she can’t help but crave the brother she never had, can’t help but hope that maybe Billy can be that, that maybe they can be one of those families like the Wheeler’s or the Byers’ or the Sinclair’s. It certainly didn’t excuse what he has done, and looking at the tension in his expression, she was pretty sure he knew that, too.

But he wanted to try, seemed to be genuine. And she wanted to believe in that. She wanted to believe that maybe this could change for the better—that they could maybe, given time, be friends.

Billy gave a small nod, as if he was confirming the commitment to himself, before reaching over to turn off the ignition and getting out, giving Max one last look over the hood of the car before he was walking away, towards the entrance.

Max could feel the nervousness coil in her, but there was excitement there, too.

And there was hope.

And she clung to it.

 

 

 

“Hey, where’s Max?” Steve couldn’t help but ask as the kids piled into his car. He still couldn’t really believe that he had gotten roped into essentially being the dad of a group of unruly kids.

How was this his life?

Dustin set his bag between his legs, frowning a bit. “She said she and Billy were going to talk after school.”

“I can’t believe she’s going to _willingly_ talk to that dick,” Lucas grumbled from the backseat, his arms crossed. Steve couldn’t find the heart to scold him on his language, watching Mike nod in agreement to Lucas’ assessment. Steve could see that Will didn’t seem to share the sentiment, instead looking at them quizzically before turning his attention out the window, seeming to have decided that the conversation wasn’t something he wanted to get involved in—if the way he frowned and his lips screwed up in a look of consternation was anything to go by.

It was one of the few times Steve had Will in his car, Jonathan typically being the one to drive his brother, but Jonathan and Nancy wanted to go see a movie that was showing practically right as school let out and Steve was already driving the other kids to their hang out today. What was one more? Especially since they were all heading to the Byers’ house today.

“Did she say what about,” he couldn’t help but ask, pulling out of the school parking lot and beginning to drive.

“No,” Lucas admitted, looking upset about that fact—maybe a bit hurt. It was reminiscent of how he felt when Nancy had been acting weird before Steve knew what was going on—the whole monsters and other dimensions and crap. He certainly didn’t miss that feeling.

“She was acting weird, though,” Mike supplied, helpfully.

“All we got out of her is that she says she’ll tell Billy about the sleepover we’re planning for New Years.”

“Ah, fuck, that’s right. That’s this month, isn’t it?” Steve sighed, fingers tapping on the wheel, biting the inside of his cheek.

“Uh, yeah,” Dustin deadpanned. “ _Obviously_ —it’s the same every year, dude.”

Steve rolled his eyes in response, pulling into the Byers’ driveway. “Shut up,” he grumbled, but humor bled into his voice, the corner of his lip twitching upwards, putting the car in park and turning off the ignition. He got out, watching the boys scramble out of his car, too, already starting on what they were going to teach Steve today.

_Seriously,_ how was this his life?

 

 

 

It had tried to _bite_ him, he realized idly, looking at the writhing, fiery mass before him.

It had tried to _eat_ him.

He had almost _died._

It had lunged for his throat. Its claws had pressed him down. Its teeth had managed to catch a bit of the skin at his side and torn, cut in, _burned_. It had opened its flower petal maw and the viscous fluid—drool—that came out of its mouth had entered his.

He could still taste it, could still feel it, and he hated that it was inside him, felt sick at the knowledge.

_It had tried to kill him._

He would’ve left it, was going to leave it. The second he managed to get the lighter out of his pocket, managed to get his shirt off of his body and at least partially into the things mouth, teeth catching on his forearm and ripping, lighting the fabric up with his lighter, losing his grip on it as he yanked his arm back as fast as possible, he was ready to leave it. He had been so ready to leave it to burn.

But then it ran.

It ran off, out of the warehouse Billy had managed to briefly trap it in, a flaming four-legged creature, heading towards the woods.

And it was still on fire.

He cursed and tore off after it, only taking a second to grab his jacket from his car, the cold air nipping at his skin. He was definitely not getting that shirt back. Or his lighter, he added morosely in his head. Pushing that thought aside, he hurried after the thing, not quite sure where they were going, but the creature seemed to know, weaving and stumbling between trees, leaving Billy to frantically put out anything that he saw catch fire while still not losing sight of the beast.

He found himself being grateful that it was late December and that snow covered the majority of the forest ground, limiting the amount of things that would be able to catch fire.

And then it came to a halt in front of a tree, scrambling into the trunk, all the while emitting a high pitched shriek that made Billy wince. He crouched, watching it push itself through the opening—with his shirt and lighter, he sourly noted—into the tree.

The awning was in the base of the tree and most certainly shouldn’t be there, but it was and it didn’t visibly lead anywhere, but the creature had gone into it. The edges of it were covered with the same viscous substance that the creature’s saliva seemed to be composed off—the same viscous substance that had covered the walls of the tunnel he had gotten it out of.

Where did it even go?

Where did the hole lead?

What had he gotten himself into?

He stared for what felt like minutes, what might’ve been hours, until he finally forced his chilled limbs to move, only then realizing that he had been bleeding all over the forest floor.

Well, _fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments below! <3


	4. o4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I've been so exhausted lately. I might disappear for a few days, but, fret not. I will be back (probably really soon because I've never been able to stay away too long whenever I announce it),

"Billy," Max called, and her voice was careful, tentative, and Billy knew that was how it would be for a bit regardless of how he felt about it. It had only been a few days since their talk, and it would be a while before things were better, bridges constructed, and trust installed.

He knew that, but it still felt weird. He fought down whatever annoyance wanted to build in him, shoving it into a box deep inside of him and trying not to acknowledge it. It wasn't exactly difficult to realize that it would take time for a relationship to build between them, but it was still frustrating. He wanted to be able to move forward, speed forward full force, but he knew that it wasn't necessarily Max that would be making the process long, but, rather, himself that would. Because the anger was still there, try as he might to extinguish it, and he didn't know how to get rid of it, how to not be with it.

He wanted to blame her, but he knew it wasn’t her fault. He wanted to blame Neil, but, for all the shit he had done to Billy, it wasn’t his fault either. It was his, and he knew that was something he would have to live with for the rest of his life.

"Yeah," he responded, setting down his weights and clicking off the stereo, stubbing out his cigarette as he passed, turning to look at Max.

She didn't stand meekly, not quite, anyway, but she seemed unsure whether it was okay for her to be there. And he hated that, hated that he made it that way. But some part of him took perverse pleasure in it, and he hated _that_ even more. None of it was appealing, none of it was okay, but it made him feel powerful, somehow—like he had control over something at last. And it was fucked up.

He knew that.

_He fucking knew._

But he didn't know how to stop.

"So, the guys are planning a sleepover for New Years, and since mom and dad aren't going to be back by then, I was wondering," she trailed off, seeming to try and search for the right words. Billy watched her for a second, wrangling down the bitterness that built in him, determined to accomplish his goal of changing, of being better.

"Is an adult going to be there?"

"Will's mom will be there," she confirmed. "And the Chief," Max added, almost as an afterthought.

"Who else," he pushed, muscle in his jaw twitching, inhaling deeply to keep his calm.

He could see she was getting fidgety, getting defensive, but she held back her emotions, keeping her cool, and he felt a form of pride develop in his chest, weak but there, along with appreciation and relief. She was trying, just as he was.

They could do this.

_He_  could do this.

They could make this work.

"Lucas, Dustin, Mike, Will, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan—and the Chief and Will's mom," Max listed, fingers curling in the fabric of her sweatshirt, hands buried in the pockets. "And El," she tacked on; wincing a little bit, like forgetting that last name was grounds for punishment.

He realized that it probably used to be, probably would receive a snide remark about her intelligence or something of that ilk.

Most of the time, though, his memory ended up being pretty hazy whenever he lost whatever control he had—not that it excused any of his actions—like with Harrington. He barely remembered the fight, barely remembered even touching Sinclair. He just remembered the rage at being lied to, at being treated like an idiot, that rage combining with the humiliation and pain inflicted by his father, and he couldn’t control it, didn’t try to.

Not to mention that the scene was _really fucking creepy_ and looked so _wrong_ on so many levels.

He let out a slow breath, making a mental tally of the names in his head. "Alright," he responded. "What time is it at?"

"It starts at three on Monday," she responded.

"How long is it going to be?"

"Till six on Tuesday, but Lucas invited me for dinner at his house after I mentioned that our parents are out of town.”

Billy took another deep breath, grabbed his box of cigarettes and tugged one out, lighting it up and taking a drag. Man, he needed something stronger, needed to not feel, not think, even if it was only for a little bit. “Alright, that’s tomorrow,” he sighed, barely resisting the urge to scrub his hand over his face or berate her for waiting till the last minute to ask, instead taking another drag from his cigarette. “Alright, okay,” he mumbled. “But I’m driving you there, okay? And I’ll pick you up when you’re done at Sinclair’s, got it?”

“Why?”

He watched how she quickly seemed to regret the question and his fingers twitched, and he tried to reign in the annoyance, focusing on the fact that they were trying and that it was going to take time and hard work and effort. “Because there’s no need to make his parents go out of their way to drive you home when I have a car. Just call me and I’ll drive over. If I don’t answer, ask for a ride.”

Max nodded and she gave a fleeting smile before disappearing down the hall, probably to go call her friends and tell them she was in the clear to go.

Billy thanked everything that she was smart enough to close the door behind her again, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes as they burned and his throat tightened.

He hated how lucky she was, how she managed to have everything he could only ever dream of having.

He hated it, _hated it._

And he clung to that sentence, to that distinction. He hated _it_ , not _her_ ; he reminded himself, breathing in deeply, shakily putting the cigarette between his lips and taking a long pull, letting the smoke swirl in his lungs before letting it out.

He did it again, repeating the same sentence over and over until his hands stopped shaking and the cigarette was almost gone.

He took the rage and the bitterness and shoved it down deep.

 

 

 

The house was so quiet that Billy refused to spend a second more in it.

Instead, he had grabbed his jacket and gone to the library. Billy had never been one for the library—not because of some superficial reason that he wasn’t a nerd, but because if his father caught him going there, he would probably be in for a beating.

The librarian cocked an eyebrow at him when he walked in and he gave her a charming smile, watching how her eyes glazed over slightly as she nodded her head in greeting. He could feel her eyes on his backside as he walked past her, but he ignored it. It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Walking amongst the shelves, he let his fingers run along the spines, chewing slightly on his bottom lip. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for, but he knew he’d find it here. Fingers stopping at a book, he plucked it off the shelf, leafing through a few pages, skimming through and memorizing the things he wanted to remember.

It was a book on how to deal with trauma, looking relatively untouched, and he chewed on the inside of his cheek while he thought. Would the tips be of any use to him? It said that anger was a normal symptom, but nowhere did it say that he should’ve ended up like his father.

Was he so screwed up that it had never happened before?

The thought made bile rise up in the back of his throat, and he quickly shoved the book back on the shelf. At least he knew that he did half of the things the book recommended to do already, so maybe there was hope. Maybe he could fix himself on his own.

But what if he couldn’t?

He tried to shut down that train of thought, but it had already started and it made his lungs seize and the anger rise up in him, suffocating and strangling, making his heart race and his eyes burn. What if he couldn’t? What if he failed? What if he ended up exactly like Neil? What if he couldn’t break the fucking cycle? What if? _What if?_

“Young man,” the voice from beside him called and he startled, looking over and meeting eyes with the librarian.

“Oh, sorry—got lost in my thoughts,” he laughed, pushing away all the emotions building inside of him. He could deal with those later.

The librarian gave him a smile “Well, the library’s closing now,” she told him and he blinked in surprise.

“How long has it been?”

“Two hours, darling.”

Billy blinked before giving a small laugh. “Guess I was thinking too hard,” he mumbled, thanking her before walking away.

He didn’t want to go home, so he found himself at the edge of the forest instead, parking the car and getting out. He turned the ignition off, slipping out of the car and clambering gently onto the hood to lean back against the windshield and look up at the sky.

It was cold, but he could see the stars and it made him feel warm and calm inside like nothing else ever managed to.

It made him feel at peace.

He was grateful that it wasn’t snowing, wrapping his arms around himself and staring up at the gleaming lights in the night sky. He could feel the tension slowly bleeding out of his muscles, relaxing for the first time in days. He rubbed idly at his arm, picking at the scabs that had formed where the creature had torn into him days ago, wincing as he peeled one off accidentally.

He could see the blood under his nails and the red welling in the wound. He immediately wiped it away with his fingers, returning his gaze to the stars, watching how his breath appeared in front of him in white little puffs.

Then a branch snapped, and any sense of relaxation he had gained was gone in an instant as he sat up quickly, looking out amongst the trees. His heart was thundering in his chest and he slowly slid off the hood of the car, looking out into the dark depths of the forest. There was a sort of mist developing on the ground, and his eyes narrowed, brow furrowing.

That wasn’t normal.

He saw the dog like thing first, coming forward on four legs, its flower petal head closed for the moment, bent low to the ground. And then right behind it came a being, humanoid in form, but with skin a sickly yellow green, like vomit. He couldn’t take in much more other than the yellow of its eyes and the glittering black center before the thing was on him, with hands large and sharp, grabbing at his throat.

_Fuck_.

He fought back, wrenching himself away, feeling the sting of the skin on his neck opening, ignoring the wetness of blood as he turned and landed a solid kick on the puke-skinned creatures chest, hard enough to send it stumbling back a few steps, giving him enough time to shove himself into his car and rev the engine, launching himself away from the area before the thing could regain its footing and before the dog—the dog he had been pretty sure died a fiery death, unless this was a different one—could launch itself at him.

He pressed his fingers shakily to his throat, keeping the other hand firmly on the wheel, fighting back the urge to throw up when it came away slick with blood.

_Fuck._

 

 

 

“Billy,” a voice called and he looked over, keeping the glove he had found in, laughingly enough, the glove compartment of his car pressed to his throat, hands shaking just slightly because, seriously, this was the _second_ time he almost _died_ in just as many weeks.

“Ms. Byers,” Billy responded, clearing his throat slightly when it came out a bit gruff, pulling on a smile as he tried to make holding a glove against his throat look casual and normal. He couldn’t say he was very successful. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I thought you were with the kids celebrating.”

Joyce laughed a bit, shouldering her purse a bit higher. “Yeah, well, apparently I didn’t stock up on enough candy,” she responded, giving a helpless little shrug of her shoulders that made him smile unconsciously. “What are you here for? I figured you were celebrating with some friends or something when you didn’t come in with Max.”

“Ah, oh, no, no—I came for some gauze, actually,” he responded, looking back at the shelf he was in front of briefly. “And band-aids.”

“Did something happen?”

It alarmed him that her face showed concern. Why was she concerned? Was she concerned for _him_? The thought made him laugh internally. Yeah, definitely not, he concluded, mentally. And then he proceeded to freak out a little bit, because how was he supposed to respond to that question?

He gestured helplessly to his throat, watching her eyes widen, holding back a flinch when her hand came out of nowhere, reaching out towards him and holding his hand, moving it and the glove away from the wound, looking at the slice that would probably scar, despite his desires. “How,” she trailed off, looking up at him and he quickly covered it back up so that she couldn’t really see the gravity of it.

He had looked at it in the rearview mirror in the car. It didn’t look that bad until he actually looked at it longer and realized that it might, possibly, need stitches—but like hell he was going to go to the hospital.

He’d stitch himself up. He had done it enough times, already, although never somewhere so delicate.

“Shaving accident,” was what he offered up instead. “The neighbor’s cat thought it would be funny to shriek for no reason—scared me half to death, and then,” he motioned to his neck, “ _voila_.”

Joyce gave a nod, her lips quirking upwards. He wasn’t sure if she believed him, but the fact that she wasn’t saying anything was good enough for him.

“Well, how about you get these ones,” she said, browsing the shelf quickly and grabbing a box. “I think they work the best.” Her smile was infectious, and Billy found a part of himself longing to see it more. What would it have been like to grow up with her instead of Neil? But he pushed that thought away, crushed it like a bug.

He couldn’t let himself go down that road, couldn’t let himself spiral like that.

“Thank you.”

She smiled, motioning for him to follow as she grabbed a bag of candy on her way to the counter and paid for the three items despite his protests that he could pay for his stuff. She led the way out of the store, walking with him to his car, only then handing over the boxes.

“Billy,” Joyce began, and her gaze was warm and concerned and it made Billy angry and desperate and made him feel so much he thought he might puke, “what do you say to coming around to the house this Friday for dinner?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Jonathan is going to be out with Nancy, and Will is going to be at Mike’s house with the others,” Joyce responded, smiling as Billy accepted the box of gauze and band-aids that she had bought for him. “I think we should talk.”

That didn’t sound good.

But her smile was warm, and she seemed hopeful. Billy didn’t want to be the one to make that expression go away. She had been nice to him, had been open and welcoming. He didn’t want to tarnish it, although he thought it was a miracle she still even treated him like that—like he was worth her time.

“What time?”

Her smile was positively radiant. “How does five o’clock sound? You can help me out a bit.”

He ignored the thought of his father probably being back by then, Susan in tow. He ignored the fact that he would probably be itching for someone to hit when he got back, someone to yell at and tear down. He ignored the fact that he knew it would be him.

“Friday, five o’clock—I’ll see you, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a comment below with your thoughts <3


	5. o5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm a little less meh now, so hopefully I'll be able to update more, but I've had to change some things in the drafts for the next chapters, so the next update might be a but from now, but hopefully not too long.

“Hargrove,” Steve called and he watched the man in question pause in rinsing the suds from his body, eyes flicking up to meet his, eyebrow cocked in question. “Lucas said you came by his house.”

“I was picking up Max,” he responded and Steve watched him duck his face under the spray of water, scrubbing his hands over it and up into his hair, letting out a slow breath. “What’s it to you, anyway?”

Steve shrugged. He didn’t really know, to be honest. He had looked at Billy, at how mellow he was that day, and had immediately thought to ask. But talking to Billy Hargrove like a normal person was hard, so he had decided a roundabout manner of questioning would be better.

He might’ve been wrong on that approach.

“What happened to your neck?”

He watched Billy’s fingers brush over the gauze he had taped to his throat before the guy continued to rinse off. “Situation got hairy,” was the short response he received before Billy was turning off the tap and walking away, grabbing a towel and drying off.

He frowned. What kind of situation? And how had it gotten hairy?

He turned, ready to ask another question, curiosity overpowering his dislike for the male at the moment, but the guy had already stopped and was looking at him, a hand tugging at the ends of one of his curls.

“I’m glad your face isn’t screwed up anymore, Harrington,” Billy finally said, a lazy smirk emerging to grace his lips. “Purple really isn’t your color.” And then he was gone, leaving to get dressed and go home for the day.

Steve just stared after him, mouth gaping slightly, and confusion filling his mind. What was that about?

_Was that an apology?_

He only stopped staring at where Billy had been standing when the suds in his hair dripped into his eye, making him curse and duck his head back under the spray.

 

 

 

“Apparently Billy’s mean to Max,” Will blurted out, looking down at his drawing with a fierce attentiveness even though his hand refused to move, eyes slightly wide and heart sinking. He heard his mom stop doing whatever it was she was doing—he hadn’t looked up from his drawing in a while—and felt her come closer, finally got himself to move and look up at her when her hand rested on his shoulder and she sat on the chair next to him.

“I know,” Joyce responded, and Will’s eyes widened, jaw falling slack for a moment before a frown overtook his features and he looked at his mom shakily.

“Why do you like him, then? None of the guys like him. Steve says he’s awful, and he, apparently, attacked Lucas and Steve and Max had to sedate him,” he blurted. “Even Jonathan doesn’t like him.”

Joyce’s smile was sad and Will hated seeing it, wanted her to be happy. He wanted to see her smile with joy all the time, to never be sad anymore, but he knew that it was only a dream and would never come to fruition. Monsters or not, something would always be around to make people sad. What mattered was that his mom still ended up happy at the end.

That was what he cared about.

“If I tell you,” she whispered to him, the corners of her lips twitching upwards, “do you promise to keep it a secret? You can’t tell anyone—not even Jonathan, or Max.”

He nodded, head bobbing as he twisted in his chair to face her more completely. He loved moments like this where he and his mom got to be close and personal with each other, got to share things they wouldn’t with other people. If there was one good thing that came out of all the horror that had come to their family it was how much closer he felt to his mom. “I promise.”

“Okay,” she flashed him a smile before her lips pursed, seeming to be searching for the proper way to start. “Do you remember how you felt when the Mind-flayer,” her lips quirked at the name the boys’ had given that horrid thing, “was in you? Like you had no control?”

Will nodded, brow furrowed, not really following where she was going with it.

“Do you remember how you were the month afterwards?”

He nodded.

He remembered it too clearly, remembered that desperation, that need to be in absolute control of himself and the things around him. He had done his best to dictate every conversation he had, had done all his homework with no help, had been unable to play Dungeons and Dragons with his friends because he had no control over the roll of the dice or what Dungeon Master Mike would say was coming for them.

The lack of control had nearly driven him mad, but the severe amount of control he had strived for had driven everyone else mad. His friends had gotten mad at him and even Jonathan had been annoyed. He didn’t know how to explain it to them, the feeling of utter helplessness, of being powerless.

They didn’t get it.

Dr. Owens had still been in the hospital, then, too, so they hadn’t been able to go and see him and see if he could help in any way.

“Well, Billy is like that.”

“He’s like how I am?”

She nodded at him. “For different reasons, but yes,” she confirmed.

“How,” he fiddled with one of his crayons, “how do you know?”

She leaned back in her seat. “Well, he was the one who gave me the advice of getting you to draw every time you felt like you didn’t have control,” Joyce murmured, smiling at the way Will nodded, attentive as he always was. “He shows up to the store sometimes looking for first aid things, and he’s very angry,” she looked down at her hands.

“What makes him feel like that? What monster’s in his life?” Will mumbled.

“I don’t know for sure,” she admitted. “That’s why he’s coming for dinner Friday.”

Will nodded, looking down at his drawing, coloring in a little section before pausing, staring down at the image. He could remember what it felt like to crave that control—not just crave it, but _need_ it, feeling like he would fall apart if he didn’t have it. He remembered watching everyone distance themselves from him and not knowing why and getting angry because they just _didn’t understand_. He remembered feeling so alone, like no one was there for him.

But he had his mom.

He had his mom who came home one day with a hopeful smile and a light to her eyes and told him what a nice young gentleman had suggested he do whenever he felt like he needed control. He remembered his mom handing him the brand new box of crayons the guy had bought for him and putting a piece of paper in front of him and smiling as he immediately began to draw.

He remembered her not judging him when he would end up with drawings scattered all about his room, like an artsy bomb had gone off in it, for days after he had started. He remembered her just being happy because he wouldn’t freak out if she made his sandwich instead of him, wouldn’t end up with a panic attack because Jonathan had taken his hand and moved it for him to show him something.

He remembered his mom telling him that the guy— _Billy,_ she had said—was happy he was doing better.

He remembered wanting to meet him to say ‘thank you’ in person.

And then he remembered the comments everyone made about Billy, how he wasn’t nice, how he had attacked Lucas and Steve, how he treated Max badly, how he would drive at ridiculously high speeds and had once nearly run Mike, Lucas, and Dustin over. And he remembered the sick feeling in his stomach as the two people in his head didn’t coincide.

“I don’t like how they talk about him,” he admitted, quietly. “I know they have their reasons, but he helped me. And—and—if you’re right and he’s like how I was, that could’ve been me. What if I didn’t have you? That could be me—I could be Billy. And they didn’t understand what was happening to me, so how can they understand what’s happening to him, and,” he trailed off, breathing hard, surprised to feel his eyes burning and the heat in his cheeks and the pounding of his heart in his ears.

And he met his mom’s eyes and saw his own pain reflected in hers, and she enveloped him in a hug. “I know,” she whispered softly to him, letting him cry, letting him let out the pain the imaginary scenario had caused him. “I know, Will, I know. Some people just aren’t lucky enough to have people be there for them.”

“Do you think one of them is fake,” he whispered, voice hoarse, pulling away and wiping at his eyes.

His mom frowned.

“Do you think that his being nice isn’t really him?”

“I think they’re both him—being nice and being mean.”

“I don’t think either of them is him,” Will mumbled while wiping his nose on his sleeve, giggling a bit as his mom gave him a mildly reproachful look for doing so. “I think he’s like me.”

“How so,” Joyce coaxed, grabbing a paper towel and handing it to Will so that he could properly wipe his nose and eyes instead of wiping the snot on his sleeves.

“I feel like I’m getting swallowed by all these feelings and I don’t know what to do them, but I have friends and Jonathan and you helping me figure it out. And I think he feels like he’s being swallowed by his feelings, too.”

Joyce smiled, and it was that smile she always gave Will when she was proud of him or thought something he said was especially brilliant. It was a smile full of love and warmth and acceptance, and it lit up her face and made Will feel accomplished.

“You know, I think you’re right.”

He grinned.

“You want to help me with dinner?”

He beamed, setting down his crayons and getting up to help her at the counter, the two of them chattering animatedly about the day and how it had gone.

 

 

 

Neil was back on the third of the month, Thursday, and Billy hated that he had been right. He hated that he had been perfectly right about the anger Neil would have built up after spending the time away from his resident punching bag. The anger that the man probably hadn’t even realized he had until he stepped through the door and saw Billy stepping out of the bathroom, ready to go to bed.

“Where’s your sister?”

He bit back the automatic response negating their relationship, instead giving a slight nod of his head towards her room, but that apparently wasn’t a good enough response. It figured that if he opened his mouth, he’d be considered disrespectful, but if he didn’t say anything, it was also disrespectful.

“Are you trying to play with me, boy?” Neil hissed and just like that, Billy found himself in his room, the door falling shut, his father shoving him against his bed because if Max was home, he kept it as quiet as possible. “You answer me when I’m talking to you, you hear?” he hissed and Billy stared up at him, jaw clenching, trying to not make any noise.

His father’s hand was like a hot brand on his cheek, making his breath hitch just slightly, making him let it out in a strong stream, eyes flicking up to meet with Neil’s. He could feel the edge of the bed under his back, a leg dangling over and foot pressed to the ground. The next hit sent him tumbling off of it, just barely managing to catch himself and able to avoid making a lot of noise.

Max was asleep.

Neil would just get more infuriated if they woke her up.

“Yes, sir,” he breathed out, not even trying to get up from where he had fallen as he saw Neil’s foot raise and come down on his ribs.

_Fuck_ , that hurt.

His father was silent for a moment, simply towering over him, and Billy used the brief reprieve to get some air back in his lungs. Then the next kick came and all the air was once again knocked out of him.

“I didn’t hear you.”

“Yes, sir,” he let out again, a bit louder, trying not to wheeze as his ribs throbbed after that special attention. The kicks had been stronger than they usually were this time around and he just knew they would be tender for a longer time.

His dad didn’t say anything else, simply staring down at him, at where Billy lay fighting to not curl in on himself. When he left, he let out a shuddering sight of relief, blinking his eyes open to see Susan’s heels in the doorway and his gaze flicked up to see her looking down at him from where she stood, whispering to Neil, her eyes holding some kind of pity.

_Pity_ —as if it would do him any good.

He watched Neil’s arm curl around her waist, though, and her lean into it, her hand coming up to rest on his shoulder. He watched her smile at something he said.

He watched her _forget._

When the door closed, he let his eyes close, tears finally slipping out, cheek pressed against the coolness of the floor. He let himself feel, feel the throbbing in his ribs, the heat in his cheek, the rage and pain and humiliation inside, swirling like a tornado.

But, like a tornado, they dissipated quickly, leaving in their wake devastation, a distinctly hollow feeling inside that he couldn’t get rid of no matter what he did because it was the part of him that craved and wept for people who actually cared, for warmth and kindness.

He didn’t bother getting off the floor, instead keeping his eyes closed and letting himself drip into unconsciousness.

 

 

 

The ride to school was quiet the next morning.

Max looked over at him in concern, eyes flickering over the mum stereo before looking back up at him. She wasn’t sure what happened, wasn’t sure what made Billy look so utterly defeated this morning, the subtle signs of it etched into his face and his posture.

Halfway to the school, she reached over and turned on the stereo, letting The Scorpions fill the silence between them. She didn’t return her hand to her lap, though, instead, setting it on the console between them.

Billy’s eyes flicked over to look at her, an eyebrow cocked, but she just stared back at him, keeping her hand on the center console, palm turned up, ‘Rock You Like a Hurricane’ filling up the silence. He seemed to pause, although, the car kept moving, before his hand moved and he placed it on top of hers, giving her hand a brief squeeze.

It was reassurance.

They were still going to make this work.

Billy had said they had two weeks, and they had made so much progress in those two weeks. And _this_ , their hands clasped over the center console, warm, dry palms pressed together, it was an assurance that they would both do their best to not let that progress be lost.

Billy looked at her and gave a small upward quirk of the corner of his lips before taking his hand away and placing it back on the wheel.

She gave a small smile in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave your thoughts down in the comments below! <3


	6. o6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it has been a bit. Sorry about that. Here's the next chapter.
> 
> Happy holidays, you guys!

Pulling up at the Byers’ house was stressful, to say the least.

But Billy was good with stress, worked just fine with it.

Turning off the ignition of his car, he sat there for a moment, looking at the house before him. It would be the first time he’d be inside since the day he beat Harrington in it, since the dog flower creature had dropped out of the fridge, since he had been sedated and had his balls threatened.

Sighing, he got out of the car, grabbing the tray from the passenger’s seat and walking to the front door, knocking lightly. He waited patiently, trying not to psyche himself out to much. It was only Joyce and Joyce was kind and had beamed at him when he agreed. It would be fine.

_It would be fine._

The door swung open and there stood Joyce, her eyes lighting up and smile brightening her face. “Billy,” she sighed, her eyes warm, “I’m glad you came, she hustled him in and out of the cold, taking his coat for him and hanging it up before ushering him to the kitchen.

Billy liked her house. He hadn’t given it much thought the last time he had been there. It had looked like a psycho lived in it with drawings all over the walls and floor. But now, standing there, looking around, he really liked it. It was homey and warm, not ridiculously large—just the size needed for a three person family with enough room to be comfortable.

It wasn’t like the Wheeler’s house which was lavish and two stories and seemed a bit larger than what their family needed, but was a representation of how much they earned. It was more like Billy’s house, but slightly larger, warm in a way his own house never was—at least never to him.

“Uh, I brought cookies,” he intoned lamely, pasting a smile onto his face as he held out the tray, trying not to appear as awkward as he felt. He wanted to say he was doing a pretty good job at it, but he also felt like he’d be lying to himself then.

“Oh, thank you,” Joyce gushed, accepting the tray and setting it on the table, looking at the chocolate chip cookies. “They look wonderful,” she murmured, giving him a warm smile. He nodded a bit to show his thanks, keeping his smile in place. “Are you any good at cooking?” Joyce called back to him and he looked over, giving a slight shrug of his shoulders.

“I’d like to think I’m pretty good at it,” he responded, walking over to where she was standing at the stove. “What can I help with?”

They didn’t talk all that much while they cooked, only the occasional words here and there. It wasn’t until they were sitting down that they actually began to talk, at first about menial things but then the topics started to become more and more serious.

“The kids aren’t very fond of you,” Joyce finally said, and Billy could feel dread in the pit of his stomach, making his throat tighten with nausea. “What they say—is it true?”

He swallowed the bite in his mouth, giving a small, heavy nod. “Yes,” he whispered, swallowing another bite of the food. At this point, he was eating mainly because he felt he might get kicked out pretty soon. He had known it wasn’t a good idea to come, but he had hoped, foolishly so, and now it was coming back to bite him in the ass.

“Why? Why did you do it?”

He looked down at his plate, twisting his fork in the air slightly, lips pursing. “I was angry,” he admitted quietly.

“Why?”

His tongue poked at the inside of his cheek, fighting to get the words out. “Because Max had snuck out and I had to deal with the fall out,” he muttered, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice. He blinked in surprise as he felt a hand place itself on top of his own, just barely managing to stop himself from reflexively jerking away, eyes flicking up to meet Joyce’s and they were kind and understanding.

What was it she understood? What did she think he meant?

“Billy, I want to ask you a question, and I promise I won’t tell anyone your answer.”

_Fuck._

He didn’t like where this was going. He didn’t like it at all.

“Is—do you—are you—”

“Please, don’t,” he found himself whispering, voice barely audible.

“Who,” Joyce pressed, and he fought to keep his mouth shut. He wasn’t supposed to say. What would admitting to it do? It wouldn’t help him. It wouldn’t help anyone. It would just make her look at him with pity—and he didn’t want that.

He didn’t want her to look at him with pity if he were to tell her, “my father”.

“Oh, honey,” she breathed out and he immediately lurched out of his seat, heart beating wildly in his chest, blood rushing in his ears.

He had said that out loud.

He had said it _out loud._

_Fuck._

“I have to go.”

“No, no,” Joyce hurried to reassure, but Billy could barely hear her. He could only hear the pounding of his heart and feel the rage building inside of him, rage at himself for having let it slip, humiliation that he had revealed that part of himself to Joyce all because she was nice and treated him like a human being and not like scum or like a piece of meat. “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone and I won’t. Sit down, Billy—please.”

He hated how much he liked her; how that soft look in her eyes made him slowly sink back into his seat even though he felt like he couldn’t function.

“You _can’t_ tell _anyone_.”

He couldn’t even find it in himself to be ashamed at the hint of panic in his voice. The panic wasn’t clear on his face, at the very least, but he knew that he looked too emotionless, probably—maybe he looked like he had seen a ghost. Was there even blood in his face? It certainly felt like there wasn’t—felt cold.

“I won’t, I won’t.”

He stared her down, eyes cold, jaw set. They were silent for a moment before Billy gave a short nod, finally letting himself relax again. “How’s Will?” he asked, feeling relief flood through him when Joyce took the topic change in stride.

“Oh, you know, he’s okay. He’s been drawing a lot more recently,” she told him, and he nodded, giving a small hum of acknowledgement. “But his drawings haven’t been anything bad, so that’s good.”

He gave her a small smile.

 

 

 

Climbing trees was fucking awful, Billy concluded, clinging to the trunk of the tree, sitting crouched on a branch. He had ended up at the tree the dog thing had disappeared into—and where he was semi-sure the puke-skinned humanoid being had come out with another one of the dog things. Unfortunately, their schedules had apparently synced and they were about to crawl out just as Billy got there.

So, he did the intelligent thing and climbed the tree to avoid being seen.

And he kept climbing, just in case they saw him up there because he had to make sure they wouldn’t be able to reach him.

Climbing trees honestly _fucking sucked._

The two things had skulked off a few hours ago, but Billy found himself still in the tree. And it wasn’t that he couldn’t climb down or that he was scared to—no, his problem wasn’t that. His problem lied in the fact that his fingers were frozen stiff and his limbs were chilled and he was fairly certain climbing up a tree with a torso bruised black and blue hadn’t been his smartest idea.

The pain was really what was keeping his stuck in the tree. And, to top it all off, it was seriously fucking cold.

“Hargrove, what the shit,” he heard and he blinked, squinting down at the ground, hating the fact that it had started to snow again, giving him even less incentive to make the attempt to climb down. Down on the ground, Steve Harrington was looking up at him, an amused look on his face.

“Harrington,” he called, letting his gaze flick around the forest floor quickly, worry sparking in him. What if those things came back? “’m surprised to see you around here,” he finally responded, looking back down at Steve. “Care to join me?”

“What are you doing up there?”

“Discovering the joy of freezing my balls up from this far off the ground—what do you think? I climbed the fucking tree, Harrington.”

“Yeah,” the male responded and Billy watched him pull himself up a few branches, moving carefully. He was probably worried of slipping, which was smart. Billy couldn’t say he had really had that concern when he had practically flown up the tree to as high as he could go without the branches snapping under his weight. “Why, though,” he pressed, settling on the branch he was on at that moment, seeming to not want to push his luck further.

Billy shrugged, not exactly sure how to respond without saying the truth. “Wanted to,” he settled on simply.

“How long have you been up here?”

“How the fuck should I know, Harrington?” he grumbled. “The sun was over there when I first got here and now it’s over here.” He peeled his hand away from the trunk and pointed into the sky and at the barely visible sun amongst the clouds that were letting out fluffy flakes of snow at a seriously frantic pace. He would’ve been just fine not seeing snow ever, if he was being honest. “Make of that what you will.”

“You’re talking hours there, Hargrove. Are you stuck or something?”

“No,” he grumbled, returning his hand to its position on the trunk, shifting his chilled limbs slightly and cursing as his blood frantically rushed to it, lighting up limbs he hadn’t even realized had fallen asleep. “I got cold,” he muttered because that was better than saying the truth even though it made him sound kind of pathetic.

He heard Steve snort and then giggle, giggles devolving into chuckles until that dissolved into laughter—which was abruptly cut off when Harrington leaned a little too far and nearly fell off the branch, flailing and gripping the wood tightly.

It was Billy’s turn to laugh at that, grinning down at the male who glared up at him in annoyance.

“Okay, but, seriously—you got cold and you decided not to move?”

“You do remember that I’m from California, right?”

Steve blinked before jerking, once more leaning dangerously far on the branch and having to rectify his position in an aborted flailing motion, holding on tightly again. “Shit, that’s right. Max has been fine with it—it completely slipped my mind.”

“I’m just going to pretend that whole thing doesn’t still give me the creeps,” he muttered, but he was fairly certain Steve had still heard him if his glare was anything to go by. But it was also snowing intensely, so Billy couldn’t really say he was one hundred percent certain on that front. “Max is also young—she lived in Cali for less time than I did. She wasn’t even born there.”

“Huh,” Steve mumbled. “I did not think of that either.”

Billy rolled his eyes, looking around the forest floor again, trying to see if he could see those creatures at all. If he came down, he did not want to run into those things that he climbed up a tree specifically to avoid. “How high of a fall do you think this is?”

“What?” Steve jerked.

“Height, Harrington—how high up would you say I am?”

“Fuck if I know, Hargrove—high enough that a jump would probably kill you or at least break a lot of bones.”

Billy pursed his lips, looking down at the snow covered ground. Should he risk it? Would that be very smart? If he broke a lot of bones, he’d end up in the hospital. And his family seriously could not afford that. Plus, when he recovered, Neil would undeniably beat him badly enough that he’d end up back there.

“You’re not seriously considering jumping, right?”

“It seems like a lot less work,” Billy quipped back, frowning down at the ground. A glance at the sky and the barely discernible form of the sun told him that he would have to start climbing down soon if he wanted to be out of the woods before dark. Shifting, he raised his hand, shoving back his sleeve to look at the watch, cursing softly.

He was supposed to pick up Max. Fuck.

Shifting on the branch, he gripped the trunk, positioning his body to land on the branch a few branches down, and slid down, hands burning as they scraped against the bark, but it was a faster way to get off instead of going branch by branch.

He heard Steve let out a sharp curse from below him and he couldn’t help snorting in amusement. Maybe he should care more about the potential danger of getting down that way, but he was cold and he was going to be late if he dawdled anymore and the more important danger were the creatures that might comeback at any moment. Caring about maybe breaking a leg seemed ridiculous.

“Fucking hell—what the shit,” Steve hissed in alarm as Billy shifted to aim for another branch a few ways below him, grunting as his feet hit the branch, gripping the trunk tightly to ensure he wouldn’t end up slipping off the branch. “You’re going to fall!”

“O’ ye of little faith, Harrington,” Billy tossed down to him, repeating the process until he sat on the branch a bit above Steve’s. “I haven’t fallen yet. Besides,” he commented idly as he twisted and slid down the tree a bit more, “this is how you get off of palm trees.”

He sat on the lowest branch and jumped down the rest of the way, sighing in relief as his feet touched the snow covered ground. His torso throbbed, though, with a vengeance that made him want to cry, but he fought back the pain. He still had to get out of the forest, still had to pick up Max.

He looked down at the awning that was practically concealed by the snow, unnoticeable unless you knew it was there. He looked up at Harrington.

He guessed he still had to make sure the guy got out of the forest fine, too.

“It’s going to get dark soon.”

“Are you worried for me,” Steve called down, “because that’d be real fucking rich coming from the guy that broke my face in.”

“More like I don’t want the police coming after me if you die out here because it shows one set of tracks leading away from here,” Billy responded with. “But stay up there, if you want.”

He began to walk in the direction of where his car was parked, shoving his hands deep in his pockets. The sound of snow crunching under shoes behind him made a small smirk curl on his lips. They walked back to the road in silence, Steve a few paces behind him. He could feel the heat of Steve’s eyes on him, and it made the hairs stand on the back of his neck.

Once they reached their cars, parked side by side, apparently, Billy walked to the driver’s side of his car, looking around him quickly to make sure the creatures hadn’t shown back up.

“Harrington,” he called over, watching the male jump a little bit, probably having grown used to the silence in the short time they had been walking. He remembered what Joyce had been telling him in the two weeks following that initial dinner, whenever he stopped by the shop she worked at or when she invited him out for coffee on weekends—to try and not let the shame and humiliation and anger beat into him control him and his decisions. So, he took a deep breath and swallowed down the rage and the shame and the humiliation that wanted to bubble up inside of him and opened his car door as he spoke. “It doesn’t make up for it, but, for what it’s worth, sorry for breaking your face,” he mumbled, not even bothering to look up and meet Steve’s eyes, instead clambering into his car and speeding away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments below! <3


	7. o7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck, it has been a bit. I'm sorry about that, guys. My stomach has been rebelling for the last few days since I got on break (because I've been eating a bunch of shit I'm not supposed to) and I've been trapped in a cycle of puking and feeling like shit.
> 
> So, here's the next chapter!

Joyce had asked him to take her kid to therapy.

He had said yes.

Joyce had asked him to take care of her kid.

He had said he would do his best.

Will has asked to get milkshakes before his session.

Billy had stupidly said okay.

And now here he was, hands clutching the steering wheel in a death grip, Will practically frozen in fear, his head whipping around to look at every mirror, trying to see if he could catch sight of the—according to Will—demo-dogs that had been tailing them.

Seriously, Billy and Will had to have the worst luck.

“Left, left, _left_ ,” Will shouted and Billy wrenched the steering wheel to the side, one hand coming out to flatten itself on top of Will’s chest, making sure he didn’t go flying, muscles flexing as he tried to maintain control of the steering wheel, one of the demo-dogs just barely missing his window.

“Fucking shit,” he hissed; shifting the gears of the car as it swerved into the grass, tearing across the expanse of white, twisting the wheel to get them back on the road. “Will, you need to wrap that thing up right the fuck now,” he told him, reaching over and tearing open the glove compartment and grabbing the gauze and bandages he kept in there—because after that first time, he insisted on being prepared.

“Okay,” Will responded and his voice was shaky and thick with panic.

“We’re going to be fine, okay? Don’t worry. Just get that covered up.”

Will gave a frantic nod, and Billy gave him a wary look but returned his eyes to the road. After all, he was speeding in the middle of winter in fucking Indiana. It was like asking for death.

Whipping by a house, his head snapped to the side as he caught sight of sickly yellow skin and yellow black eyes. It was heading away from them, though; not even taking note of the car, and the dog at its side seemed fairly disinterested in them, others joining up with the pair.

Were they safe?

“I got it covered,” Will told him and Billy looked over to see the boy with gauze pressed to his palm, medical tape hastily wrapped around it to hold it down. He nodded, shifting the gears again before finally slumping in his seat.

“I think we’re good now. I saw them heading away.”

Will didn’t respond and Billy looked over to see big, fat tears spilling from his wide eyes and rolling down his cheeks. “It was supposed to be closed. El closed it. This shouldn’t be possible. It should be gone.”

Billy pursed his lips, looking back at the road.

“Alright, change of plans. We’re going to the police station.”

 

 

 

Will didn’t think he’d be spending a day in the middle of February on the side of the road with a male who his mom spoke highly of but everyone else said the opposite having a panic attack, but that was exactly what he was doing.

It felt like his heart was lodged in his throat and he could hear the blood rushing in his ears, breaths escaping him raggedly. The panic filling him was immobilizing, tremors running through his body, his limbs feeling as if they were frozen stiff.

“Will,” he heard Billy say, felt the bite of the cold wind from outside hitting his face like a cold shock and making his breath stutter, his hands shaking. “Will, I need you to look at me,” Billy urged, but when he looked over at him, everything was dark. The snow didn’t glitter and reflect the light of the sun, the sky was dark, and there was the rolling of clouds in the sky. Dread filled his bones and made him want to scream, to run—maybe puke.

“Will, look at me—focus on me,” Billy urged, but his voice sounded far off, muffled. His eyes struggled to tear themselves away from the image in front of him, but Billy kept coaxing him to, the same simple command until he could finally accomplish it. His eyes finally moved away from the image of a dark, rolling sky and decayed particles floating in the air to lock onto Billy’s face. “Breath, Will, breathe,” Billy whispered and Will’s hands lashed out, flailing and grabbing for something— _something._

Billy’s hands were warm and grounded him as he gripped them tightly, following Billy’s simple instructions until he had his breathing back under control, until the panic ebbed away bit by bit and he could think semi-clearly, getting clearer by the second.

“You back with me,” Billy asked, and Will stared at his face a moment longer before giving a shaky nod, swallowing thickly. “Okay, that’s good,” Billy murmured. His voice was low and soothing and there was something like understanding in his eyes, though his lips were slightly pursed. “Can you count to ten?”

Will paused, struggled for a bit, but slowly managed to get to ten his head, giving another nod once he had managed it.

“Alright, that’s good. You let got when you’re ready to, okay?”

Will blinked in surprise, looking down at where his hands were gripping Billy’s as tightly as possible and he couldn’t make them let go for all that he tried, still shaking, the panic still simmering in his gut a bit. It was a long few minutes before he managed to finally release Billy’s hands, but the male didn’t seem upset about it having taken so long, continuing to kneel stiffly, if a bit awkwardly.

“Okay,” he said as he got back into the driver’s side, shivering slightly from having been kneeling in the snow. Will felt a pang of guilt at having made the male do that, but the guy didn’t seem upset. “Let’s go to the police station.”

 

 

 

Chief Hopper was not amused, to say the least.

 

 

 

The run-down of what had happened in the last two years made Billy seriously reconsider his life choices. If only he hadn’t given into his curiosity that day, but he quickly stopped that train of thought. It wouldn’t have been better if he hadn’t known.

Max had gotten involved in this shit. What if something happened to her? At least now he knew what happened, what could happen, and he could now be better prepared.

It could’ve been Joyce in the car with Will. For all that Joyce was a badass, Billy was glad he had been the one with Will. Joyce didn’t deserve to be put in danger like that. And Will didn’t deserve to potentially lose his mom.

“Billy,” Chief Hopper called as Joyce hugged her son in the corner of the office, looking nine levels of exhausted, “I need to talk to you in private.”

He cast a glance at Joyce who looked up from her inspection of Will to give him a small smile and a nod. Returning the gesture, he followed Hopper out of the room and to the bathroom—the only secluded place here, now that he thought about it, apart from Hopper’s office.

“What’s up, Chief?”

“Do you know how these things got in from the Upside Down?” Hopper asked, not bothering to beat around the bush, something Billy appreciated immensely.

“I have an idea of one entrance,” he responded.

“What do you mean one?”

Billy shrugged. “You guys said that the gate adapted, right? It got bigger after it was sealed in one place in order to keep it from being shut, right?” He waited till Hopper nodded. “Well, the entrance I know is small. What if it made a lot of small entrances? The Demogorgon,” he frowned a bit at the name, not really understanding the origin of it, “could pass through the two worlds. And it, the Mind-flayer or whatever, had enough energy to make the gate bigger. What if it also had enough energy to make a lot of back-up gates?”

Hopper stared at him before letting out a large groan, looking like he wished more than anything for the ground to open up and swallow him. “The worst part is that I think you might be right here.”

Billy gave him a wry grin in return.

 

 

 

Billy got home a day later, Hopper wanting to make sure no creatures were lurking about and they settled on heading to where the gate Billy knew was the day after tomorrow.

He got home early enough to hurriedly shower and change clothes. Then, he sat himself on the hood of the car and waited for Max to come out, having no desire to interact with his dad until at least after school. He wasn’t looking forward to school either, though, if he was being honest, and he sighed, tipping his head back and staring at the grey white sky, watching his breath form little white puffs in the air.

He heard the door to the house open and close and sat up to see Max standing there, bag slung over her shoulder. Her eyes grew wide before she was speed-walking over to him, pausing in front of him, seeming hesitant but a weird sort of smile was on her lips—two parts casual and one part relieved.

“You should call if you’re not coming home,” she muttered and he looked down at her, the corner of his lips quirking upwards.

“It wasn’t planned,” was his response and he gave her shoulder a soft pat, the motion stiff and laced with exhaustion, before motioning for her to get in the car.

He let her put on whatever song she wanted as an apology and thanked everything that no one had poisoned her music tastes when what she put on was something actually decent.

“Lucas said I shouldn’t worry about you,” she told him while he drove and he looked over at her to see her frowning at her hands.

“You shouldn’t.”

“Why not,” she grumbled.

He held back the annoyance that flared in him, rubbing his palm against the firmness of the wheel. “That’s my job. My job is to worry about and take care of myself and you, and I’ve been doing a shitty job of that recently. But it’s not your job to worry about me, okay? Listen to Sinclair.”

Max grumbled something, but ultimately didn’t argue and Billy thanked everything for that, as well.

“It’s weird—you agreeing with Lucas. Quick, say something bad about him.”

Billy just grinned.

 

 

 

“Hargrove,” Steve greeted as he stood over where he was sitting at the library, an unusual place for him to be at, but he had needed a quiet place to attempt to catch up on some sleep, “can we talk outside for a second?”

He blinked up at Steve lazily before letting out a put-upon sigh as he levered himself to his feet, following Harrington out of the library and down the school corridors to the school parking lot. It was cold and he shoved his hands in his pockets, doing his best to ignore the bite of the chill on his cheeks that made them turn red and his nose close.

He seriously could’ve gone his whole life without experiencing winter with snow and ice and cold.

It sucked ass.

Steve looked at him and Billy stared back, not really in the mood for teasing or fighting or anything of the sort. He had been doing better recently and he was determined to keep it that way.

The last thing he wanted was to end up like his old man.

He had even apologized to the Sinclair kid when he picked up Max the other day—and that had been fucking weird and he was only half convinced that he had meant it, but he _did it_ and that was what mattered. Especially when Max had given him that two parts casual and one part happy smile that said that they could definitely make this work— _that_ was what mattered. And her glare when he clarified that all bets were off if the Sinclair kid dared to hurt Max was playful and embarrassed and not angry or terrified— _that_ was what mattered.

And the fact that he had started hating himself a little less, that the rage had ebbed in intensity recently— _that_ was what mattered.

“I, uh,” Steve started and then trailed off, gaze flicking from Billy to the side and to the ground and back again. “I, uh, wanted to apologize.”

“What now,” Billy eloquently responded with, feeling more confused than annoyed as Steve fidgeted in front of him, shifting his weight from side to side.

“I threw the first punch. So, I’m sorry,” he clarified and Billy stared at him for a second before laughing.

And he laughed _hard_ , hand flailing out to grip Steve’s jacket and then his shoulder to keep himself upright as he leaned back and then bowed forward, actually tearing up from how hard he laughed, and cheeks hurting from the size of his grin and abdomen seizing in all kids on pain. He ended up stumbling forward amidst his laughter as the pain made him sway and his forehead bumped Steve’s shoulder and he left it there, still laughing until the laughter ebbed down to chuckles and then simply the occasional snicker.

All the while, Steve had been glaring petulantly down at him, muttering, “Hardy- _har-har_ , yeah, go ahead, laugh it up.”

“Fuck, that was good, Harrington,” he breathed, a wide grin still on his lips. “You take that apology back now and save it for when you actually have something to apologize for.”

“What?”

“Look, Harrington,” Billy started, mustering up some seriousness after all the laughter, “if it had been you doing to Max what I had been doing to Sinclair, you would’ve been dead on the spot,” he stated, voice cool and calm. He saw a flicker of fear cross Steve’s face and felt distinctly ill at the sight.

No joy, no perverse pleasure—that was good, that was _progress_.

“I wouldn’t have hesitated. We were in a kitchen. I would’ve grabbed a knife, or hit you right on the spine, right were your skull connects to it, sever the connection. See, I would’ve done a lot worse than you did. You only threw a punch. I would’ve killed. So, don’t apologize for a punch, yeah? If I received a dollar every time someone punched me, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be in a mansion.”

“Sometimes I think you’re not so bad, but then you say something really messed up and I reconsider it,” Steve muttered and Billy could only give a weak smile that he was pretty sure came out kind of self-deprecating.

“You and I both,” and with that he walked back inside, out of the cold.

But the cold still filled him inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments down below! <3


	8. o8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have much to say other than the fact that I have midterms coming up, so fair warning about that.

He had showed Hopper the gate and the man said he’d bring by a kid—Eleven, whose name was also Jane, who was also the El that had been at the New Years sleepover Max had gone to—within the week to seal it up. Apparently she had been the one to seal the gate the last time.

He thought that was pretty cool and wished he could meet her—especially because growing up in a lab sounded traumatizing and maybe she would understand him in a way that the others couldn’t and maybe she would be able to help him cope better even if she was younger than him. Age didn’t really matter to him. Wisdom was wisdom, and you didn’t need to go to someone old to find it.

Hopper told him he could come along when they did it. He said he might need the back-up, anyway, if any of the ones on this side of the gate decided to attack while the girl closed it, although the gate was relatively small—at least, compared to the description of the other two—and and should be easy to close.

He was kind of looking forward to it.

_Had_ been looking forward to it, anyway, until he found himself knocked unconscious after swerving to avoid hitting something—he wasn’t even sure what—and came to in a dark, dank environment. He was in his car, but not in it. It was like his car, but it didn’t give him the same comfort. The seats felt unfamiliar and the aura of it made him feel claustrophobic.

A look out the window told him the outside wasn’t much better.

His head hurt and he reached over to the glove compartment, cringing at the slickness that touched his fingers, viscous and nine different levels of gross. Inside was the box of gauze and band-aids he had left in there along with medical tape, and he set about patching up his head where he could, but he was fairly certain there was nothing he could do about the bruising he was sure existed on his ribs, every breath sending sharp pain lancing through his side.

There wasn’t much he could do about the cuts on his face and he was simply thankful that he was a good enough driver to avoid being launched through the windshield despite his lack of seatbelt, but the side window was shattered and there were shards of glass all over his lap and on the floor, and the cuts on his face and neck stung.

His left upper arm was bruised and it hurt like a bitch, much like his ribs and his head and he prayed that it wasn’t broken, but the movement of his muscles caused it to ache in a way that told him it was a possibility. Thankfully, if it was broken, it seemed to be a more minor one.

Once again, he thanked his driving skills for sparing him from a worse accident.

Using the rearview mirror, he patched up the worst of the cuts to the best of his abilities, shifting with a sharp wince to grab his bag from the backseat—which was also covered with the viscous goop, but the inside was dry, so he shoved the medical items inside of it, along with the flashlight he kept in there, the spare lighter, an aerosol can—because, seriously, he refused to not be prepared—and the crowbar from the backseat.

If he was where he thought he was, and a look outside the window was practically as much of a confirmation as he would get, he would need all of it and more.

Fuck his life, honestly.

 

 

 

“Hey, Max,” Ms. Byers greeted her and she smiled at her as she pulled up in front of the school, clearly waiting for Will. “Are you waiting for your brother?”

She nodded, casting another glance out at the parking lot. “He didn’t come home last night, so I don’t know if he’ll even show up,” she mumbled, brow furrowed as she scanned the cars in search of the blue car that always emitted loud music and smelled like cigarette smoke—less and less lately as Billy cut back on the smoking—and Billy’s cologne.

“How did you get to school today?”

“I called Dustin and asked if he and Steve could swing by to give me a ride.”

“Did,” she watched Ms. Byers frown a bit and lick her lips, “did your brother say he wouldn’t be home?”

She gave her a small smile, shrugging her shoulders. “No, but he does this sometimes. If he’s not back in two days, that’s when I’ll worry.”

Ms. Byers nodded, still looking concerned, but she didn’t press the issue. Max guessed it was a leftover, natural response after Will’s disappearance the first year. She couldn’t fault the woman for that, and it was kind of nice to see someone worrying about them like that even though they weren’t related to her.

Will, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin tumbled out of the school, all arguing about something that Max didn’t really care to know about, a smile appearing on her lips at their antics. Will smiled at Max as he jogged to the car, hopping into the passenger seat. He and his mom were going to spend the afternoon hanging out, apparently, and Max returned the smile. The boys called their goodbyes to Will as Ms. Byers began to drive away, looking over at Max.

"Billy isn't here yet?"

Max shrugged. "I don't think he's going to be home today. Do you think Steve will mind giving me a ride home?"

Dustin gave her a smile that made his eyes squint and put his teeth on full display. "Of course he won't," he assured and they pulled her closer to their huddle as they began to talk about random things while waiting for Steve. And when Steve pulled up, he didn't mind driving Max home, true to Dustin's word. They dropped everyone else off first, before heading to Max's house.

"Does he do this often?" Steve asked, and Max looked out the window, lips pursing.

"Sometimes," she admitted. "He's been doing it more and more recently. I think," she sighed, scrubbing her hands over her face, "I think the anger gets to him sometimes and he has to leave for a bit."

Steve nodded and they were quiet for the majority of the drive, Steve driving carefully on icy roads, wheels squelching on melted ice and snow and mush.

"He's scared of himself, I think," she mumbled, and she didn't know what it was that prompted her to say it, but she remembered Billy's face when he told her he couldn't really remember what had happened at the Byers' house when she had prompted him while they were discussing their relationship and how to make it better—how his responses to everything Max recounted were ‘I guess’ instead of definitive admittance because it was hazy in his mind, how he had looked like he hated it when that happened because it meant he had well and truly lost it and that he had lost all control over himself in those moments.

She met Steve's gaze as he looked over at her in surprise.

"That's why he leaves, I guess." She fell back into silence, watching the road, leaving Steve to his thoughts. When they pulled up to her house, she thanked him for the ride and walked inside, making sure to lock the door.

 

 

 

"Where is Billy?" Jane asked, looking over at Hopper who was staring at the parking lot area around them. They had been waiting for a while to see if Billy would come out of the school.

"I don't know," Hopper mumbled, looking out at the high school entrance, trying to see if maybe he could catch sight of the blonde haired boy. There was no sight of him and she watched the man's shoulders slump, eyes glancing tiredly out of the window, looking about ready to give up.

"Hey, Chief, what are you doing here," a male asked as he knocked his knuckles lightly against the window, making Jane slump down in her seat, knowing she was supposed to keep out of sight, although she now knew him as Steve.

"Looking for the Hargrove boy," Hopper responded, rolling down the window. "Have you seen him?"

Steve shook his head. "Nah," he mumbled, looking a bit remorseful. "I've been driving Max around the last two days. She says he disappears like this sometimes when he can't deal or something."

Jane frowned. When he couldn't deal? Sometimes she couldn't deal, too, but she had never disappeared, apart from that one time. She couldn't imagine disappearing that long again, though. But Billy was as old as Steve, right? Maybe he could disappear for that long.

"Alright, thanks," Hopper responded. Steve nodded, giving him a slight smile, eyes flicking to Jane, giving her a small nod of his head that she returned hesitantly. Only when he left did she straighten, adjusting herself in the seat.

"Gate," she ventured after a moment, looking up at Hopper curiously. Hopper blinked, seeming to come out of whatever daze he had been in, looking at her and nodding as he put the car into drive and pulled out of the parking lot. "Good?"

"Yeah, I'm sure everything's fine."

 

 

 

Fuck, it was cold here. He wasn't sure how long he had been stumbling about, but he was fairly certain he was seeing two of everything and his head throbbed. Every breath nearly made him keel over and he wanted to stop,  _needed_  to stop, but he couldn't—not here, not in  _their_  domain. He just had to make it to the gate, to the one he knew. Everything was a mirror image, right? If he could just get to it, he'd be fine, he'd be home free.

The snow crunched under his feet and he found himself leaning against the trunks of trees more often than not in his attempt to get to the gate, but he was determined, determined to make it. Just a bit farther— _just a bit farther_ —he stumbled, catching himself against the trunk, of the tree, barely fighting down the cry of pain that wanted to escape as his ribs knocked against it. He screwed his eyes shut against the pain, waiting for his head to stop spinning before slowly opening his eyes again.

It was the tree— _it was the tree._

He grinned through the pain, taking a step back to look at the entrance and felt his stomach plummet.

The gate wasn’t there.

_Fucking shit—_ it _wasn’t_ there.

It was supposed to be there. It had to be there. Where was it? _Where was it?_

He could feel his lungs seizing in his chest, making his ribs throb something fierce as he struggled to draw in a suitable breath, hands shaking, head throbbing. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. All he could do was stare at the base of the tree, at the thick trunk with no awning, and feel.

And he didn’t want to feel.

He didn’t want to.

_He didn’t want to._

 

 

 

“The gate’s closed?” Mike asked, seeming to want the confirmation and need it. Jim nodded his head in response, watching the way all of their shoulders slumped in relief.

“The only problem, though,” he continued, and he wished he didn’t have to tell them this—they deserved to think that everything was fine—but they couldn’t remain in the dark, especially if something happened, “is that there might be more than just that one.”

“What?” Nancy hissed, eyes wide, and Jim rubbed the back of his neck, lips pressing together into a tight line.

“Hargrove theorized that there might be more if the gate was adapting to keep itself from being shut.”

“The giant one wasn’t enough?” Lucas griped, looking all kinds of annoyed and Jim snorted in amusement, looking down at the floor.

“It’s only a possibility, but one you guys need to be aware of.”

The kids looked amongst themselves, seeming to try and gauge how they were feeling about the newly presented information. Jim locked eyes with Joyce, feeling guilt pang inside of him as he saw the fear in her eyes and the way she was looking at Will, terrified that he would be taken away from her again, watched her eyes flick up to fix on Jonathan, the same fear there, fear the he would get himself involved in a dangerous situation again.

He hated that he had to put them in that position, but he knew he’d feel worse had he not told them, so he swallowed down the guilt and his lips pursed. Joyce looked over at him and through the fear on her face and the sadness, she shot him a smile that was grateful and reassuring, and it did wonders to alleviate the guilt brewing inside of him.

“You guys have to be careful from now on, okay? Now, I’m not saying be paranoid, but if you see something weird, you run the other way and you call me, got it?”

Everyone nodded and he sighed, rubbing his temples. “Alright,” he breathed out, looking up at the ceiling. “El, come on, we have to go home.”

“Is she still able to come over next weekend?” Mike hurried to ask as Jane rose from her seat next to him and Hopper nodded, watching the kid beam, rising to walk the girl to the door, eager to sap up as much time with her as possible.

“Anyone else have any questions?”

“Have you happened to have seen my brother anywhere?” Max piped up from her seat next to Will, one knee pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around it, the other leg folded beneath her, her chin tucked against her knee.

“No, not recently,” Jim responded, brow furrowed. “I thought you told Harrington that it was normal.”

She shrugged her shoulders, looking off to the side. “It is, but he’s usually back by now.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for him. Let me know when he comes home.”

She nodded, head tilting so that her cheek was pillowed on her knee, brow slightly furrowed and her lips pursed. She looked concerned, which was odd considering the last Jim had heard Billy treated his sister terribly.

Putting that thought aside, he nodded in farewell to everyone before heading to the door.

“Do you think he’s missing?” Joyce asked him as they approached the door, keeping her voice down so that the kids wouldn’t hear.

“Hargrove,” he asked and at her nod, he gave a helpless shrug of his shoulders, pulling out the box of cigarettes in his pocket and sticking one between his lips, fishing out his lighter. “I, honestly, don’t know. The girl says it’s normal for him to disappear two days at a time like this. I’m going to give it another day and if he doesn’t show up, I’ll go out and look for him seriously. Hopefully he’ll show up before then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me your thoughts down in the comments below! <3


	9. o9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exams start of Monday, so I'll be studying all weekend and then stressing until my exams are finished. Just a fair warning. This week has also been super busy, hence the lack of a chapter for so long. I haven't had a moments rest since the 10th (still haven't since I'm writing two essays while posting this).

The snow was cold beneath him, the air equally as chilly, a blessing against his throbbing side and aching arm that was practically screaming at him every time he so much as moved it. The likeliness of it being broken was increasing with every passing day. He wasn’t even sure how many days had passed since he had been sloshing through the—what Will and his friends called—the ‘Upside Down’, but his clock had ticked twelve at least six times now, so he was fairly certain he had been here for three days.

The thought made him vaguely nauseous and he dragged himself up the steps of some random house covered in goop, digging out the paperclip in his bag and going to town on undoing the lock, huffing out a sigh of relief as it opened. As nice as the cold was against his skin, he didn’t fancy dying from it, and even if there didn’t seem to be decent electricity here, there had to be blankets and a closet he could lock himself in while he got some shut-eye.

It had been three days—maybe—since he had slept, four if he counted the day he disappeared, and he was fairly certain it wasn’t doing his head any favors.

The cabinets in the kitchen were semi-empty, most of the food covered in goop or rotted, but there was a bag of saltine crackers untouched by the decay in the place—at least, not yet—so, he grabbed that before shuffling out of the kitchen, legs aching, and to a linen closet.

There were blankets and he nearly wept in relief, reaching out with shaking fingers and grabbing an armful, stumbling to a bedroom after shutting the closet door and surveying one of the closets that was for clothes. There was enough space for him to hunker down and the light from his flashlight revealed no monsters, so he set down a comforter to cover the floor and piled the rest of the blankets on top, practically falling onto them as he shut the closet door behind him, crowbar resting against his palms, flashlight next to him as he curled up, ignoring the crying of his ribs, lying on his right side, eyes trained on the door.

His messenger bag lay pressed against his abdomen, his body curled around it as he finally fell into a fitful slumber, fingers curled tight around the metal of the crowbar.

 

 

 

Billy Hargrove was classified as a missing person after the third day.

And Max, for all the grief her brother had caused her, found herself saddened by the fact that no one seemed to care. Neil didn’t care, no one in his grade seemed to care, Nancy didn’t care, Jonathan didn’t care, and Steve didn’t care. Dustin, Lucas, Mike—no one batted an eye at the fact that someone they knew was missing. Not even her mom cared, which was shocking, to say the least. She expected her mom to give more of a crap about Billy. She was a caring woman and Max had simply assumed that her care extended to everyone, including Billy, but apparently it didn’t.

The only people that seemed to care, apart from Max, were Joyce and Will.

“Has he come back yet?” Will asked her at school after the fifth day. She shook her head in response, watching his shoulders slump and his lips pull down into a frown. “I still haven’t even gotten to thank him.”

“He’ll be back soon, probably,” Mike piped up from his desk as he turned away from whatever discussion he was having with Lucas and Dustin to look over at them. “You should stop worrying.” And with that—frankly useless, in Max’s opinion—bit of advice, he returned to his conversation with Lucas and Dustin, leaving Max and Will to their worries.

“My mom’s been talking to Hopper,” Will whispered to her, keeping one eye warily trained on the trio, a sign that he didn’t really want them to hear what they were saying. Max leaned closer in response, brow furrowed in confusion. What did Hopper have to do with Billy? “She says that if Billy doesn’t show up by the start of March, he’s going to let us check if El can find him.”

“Really,” Max whispered, eyes alight with a kind of hope, her lips pulling into a semi-disbelieving smile. Will nodded his head eagerly in response, grinning, as well. It was nice to know that at least she wasn’t the only one who cared about Billy, even if there was only two other people that cared. “That’s only a week away.”

“Exactly,” Will agreed with a sharp nod of his head. “That means that by the end of next week, if he hasn’t shown up, we’ll know where he is and if he’s okay.”

“He’s going to be okay.”

Will’s gaze was uncertain, Max’s own alight with determination. “It’s Billy. He’s fine and even if he isn’t somewhere safe, even if something happened to him, he’s going to be fine.” She wasn’t sure if it was the determination in her gaze or maybe Will’s own confidence in Billy and what he had seen and experienced with him, but he nodded, jaw set, a fire in his eyes. He was just as firm in his belief as Max was.

“Just one more week,” he breathed out and Max nodded, fighting away the anxiety that kept threatening to build in her.

It was only one more week.

 

 

 

“He probably bolted because of what he found out,” Nancy commented, legs folded beneath her. “He seems like the kind of person that would leave at the first sign of actual danger.”

Jonathan snorted from his spot next to her, sipping the beer in his hands idly, looking over at the covered pool. They were sitting in the chairs outside of Steve’s house, his parents away for the day, enjoying the warm, March air, the first signs of winter leaving spring moving in. It was still chilly, but less so than it had been and the alcohol was warm in their stomachs and made their limbs loose.

“Probably,” he mumbled, looking down at his beer. “I don’t know why my mom cares so much about whether or not they find him.”

“It’s probably because he’s Max’s brother,” Steve responded, stubbing out the cigarette he had been smoking, blowing out the smoke. “Your mom’s caring like that.”

“Probably,” Jonathan repeated, a slight grin on his face, taking another swig of his drink. Steve’s own was empty and he set it to the side, leaning back into his chair while stuffing his hands in his pockets. “You thought of what you’re going to do after graduation,” he asked, steering the topic away from the mutually disliked missing boy.

“Work with my dad,” Steve grumbled, head tilting back, looking up at the sky. It was grey outside despite the reduced chilliness and the light of the sun made the sky almost painful to look at despite the fact that the star was shielded by the clouds.

“I thought you said you didn’t want to do that,” Nancy commented worriedly and Steve sighed, head lolling to look at her.

“Yeah, well, I don’t exactly want to go to college either. It’s a job, Nance, and if it means I get some money and can do things in my free time to make up for the fact that I’m stuck in a career I don’t like, then I’ll take it. It’s a hell of a lot better than going to college where I’m spending money on something I also don’t want to do just to end up in a job I also don’t want. This way I get to skip the spending money part.”

“I’ve been selling my photographs recently. I might just do that. Lord knows I can’t afford college—not right now, anyway,” Jonathan told him, cutting Nancy off before she could start. They both knew how much she valued the idea of college, but it just wasn’t meant for everyone. Steve didn’t want to go, Jonathan couldn’t afford to go.

It just wasn’t meant for everyone.

“You know what we should get?” Steve burst out after a beat of silence where Nancy just stared at Jonathan in surprise. “Burgers—I’ve been craving one since last week. Come on,” he urged and Nancy’s head whipped around to face him and he shot her a grin, watching how she pushed the conversation aside in her head, a smile breaking forth.

“Why not,” she laughed and he grinned.

“That’s the spirit!”

She coaxed Jonathan up and their fingers interlaced as they followed Steve into the house to grab their keys.

Steve wished he could say that seeing them together felt fine. It didn’t. But it didn’t feel awful. He had been heart broken when Nancy had broken up with him, listening to her call their relationship and their love ‘bullshit’ had torn him apart, seeing her with Jonathan had been like knives stabbing into him repeatedly. It had hurt so much, but it had gotten easier.

It wasn’t like what they said in the movies. It wasn’t a pain that lasted months and years and that he never got over. It was a pain that lasted not even a handful of weeks and got better with every one that followed. He had taken a look at himself and thought of why it was he had liked Nancy, what about her had drawn him to her. And then he thought of whether or not he wanted her to remain a figure in his life, and the answer was a resounding ‘yes’. He wanted Nancy in his life, but having her there meant accepting that his position in hers would not be as a romantic partner, but a platonic one, and that he would have to be okay with who did end up being her romantic partner.

So, it became a matter of letting go, of relinquishing that position, of understanding that there was this amazing person he wanted to be friends with and that he could be friends with. He just had to accept the fact that friends were all they could be. And he did accept it, had come to terms with it, and even though seeing Nancy and Jonathan made something in his chest pang, it was small and muted and he barely felt it anymore.

They were friends, and that was what was important.

 

 

 

He had lost his shirt in a run in with a Demogorgon, an actual full-sized one that had made his heart stutter and his stomach swoop, had made his hands sweat as he tore it apart, lit it up, and ran like hell, shirt in shreds, one of the things arms with him in hopes of masking the scent of his blood or giving the illusion that another Demogorgon was on him already and that more didn’t need to come.

The house he stumbled into just as he felt about to collapse didn’t have a first aid kit, but they had dental floss and paperclips and a bottle of some sort of alcoholic beverage—he didn’t really care to check what it was—so he made due.

Most of the clothes here were covered in goop, but he still had his jacket, at the very least. He ended up grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his chest in a pseudo shirt and bandage, zipping his jacket up over it, hands trembling, body aching.

He wasn’t sure how much longer he could go on. The watch on his wrist had struck twelve eighteen more times. It had been twelve days since he had gotten stuck there— _twelve_. He was fairly certain he kept seeing double and his head ached. Breathing was a chore and one he no longer really felt like doing, but couldn’t fucking _stop_ , pain stabbing sharply into his side. His arm was all but useless, at this point, but he kept flexing it in a foolish hope that if the bone was broken, the repeated jarring of it would stop it from healing so that it didn’t heal incorrectly.

He felt like puking constantly, had done so quite a few times already.

Sometimes he could hear the voices of the houses he entered, could hear the way they commented on flickering lights and such. He knew it was him, had drawn to that conclusion already, and he hated to cause them such confusion.

The woods would be a better alternative, he had concluded, sitting in yet another closet, crowbar clenched tightly in his hands, heart beating slowly, but steadily, breaths slow and shaky. In the woods, there weren’t any lights, nothing he could accidentally activate.

Maybe there was another gate. All he had to do was find it. And the woods would be smart. There were lots of trees and forests were larger and more confusing on foot than most people gave them credit, meaning a gate would be better hidden there than in the actual town. So, maybe, maybe that would be his best bet.

He wished the forest wasn’t so confusing, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave me a comment down below with your thoughts! <3


	10. o10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodness, I'm very sorry about the long wait. Exams finished, but then I started some new courses and the workload has been intense. So, I'm very sorry about that.

Jim led Jane into the Byers’ house, watching the way she stepped carefully over where she thought there was ice, her fingers curled in the long sleeves of her jacket, which was really one of Hopper’s old ones that she refused to trade in for one in her actual size.

Joyce was at the door, watching them approach with a nervous smile on her face. “Jonathan is out with Nancy,” she told them as they got closer, and Jim gave a small nod, closing the door behind him as they all stepped inside. The room was warm and Jane set her coat on the rack, on the rung she could reach, toeing off her wet shoes before moving to greet Max and Will who were sitting next to each other on the couch.

“Where are friends?” Jane mumbled, looking at them curiously.

“They don’t like Billy,” Max responded.

“Billy—bad man,” she asked, settling onto the floor, her two friends sliding off the couch to join her down there, leaning back against the furniture.

“No,” Will responded immediately, remembering Billy’s hands in his, remembering his soothing voice as he talked him down, the way he made sure he was okay, the way he protected him, his own safety secondary—the way he had fearlessly gotten out of the car to help Will even though the demo-dogs could have been following them and could’ve jumped him any second.

“He’s not,” Max agreed. “He _was_ , but he wasn’t always like that, and now he’s becoming more of who he was— _is_ —and,” she trailed off. “He’s not a bad guy. He’s just,” she bit her lip, looking down at her twisting fingers, “ _angry_ —really angry.” She looked up hesitantly to meet Jane’s eyes. She didn’t want Jane to think ill of her brother, to not help find him just because others didn’t like him.

She _knew_ Billy, knew that the angry version of himself wasn’t the real him, had seen the real him, the guy that would take her to get ice cream and make the most inappropriate and rude jokes that still somehow managed to startle a laugh out of her and mock her skateboarding abilities while dropping sly bits of advice to help her be better.

That wasn’t the Billy everyone else got to meet, and it was the Billy Max hadn’t seen in what felt like forever. But that was the _real_ Billy and that Billy was coming back, and he was worth saving, and Max _needed_ him to be okay.

It was why she and Will hadn’t told anyone they were doing this. They didn’t want anyone influencing Jane’s opinion of Billy or talking her out of helping. Max wasn’t going to sugar-coat what Billy had done. She knew that what he had done was inexcusable. But she also knew that what he had done shouldn’t be a life sentence and that he could change, was changing, and that was important. And she wanted him back.

Jane looked at the both before nodding slowly. “Angry,” she whispered softly, looking down at her own hands. “Me, too,” she breathed out before looking over at Jim and Joyce who had been watching the kids silently.

“Ready, kid,” Jim asked softly, crouching down to look at her at eye level, handing over the radio and watching her twist the knobs until the sound of static started coming out. She set it down, reaching for the blindfold in the pocket of her overalls and fingering the fabric slightly. She held out her hand, looking at the picture Will set down in it; one Jonathan had taken when Billy had first rolled into town and had thrown out before Will had saved it from the trash.

“Ready,” she responded, looking down at the picture before giving a slight nod, as if confirming the image to herself as she slipped on the blindfold, tying it tight around her head, breathing slowly as she let herself get lost in the white noise.

When she opened her eyes, she was in the black space again, the in between space. She couldn’t see anything around her except black, but she could hear something—something that sounded like sharp gasps and grunts. Frowning, she followed the sound, calling out softly. “Billy,” she called, as if he could hear her and maybe he could.

But as she came upon his figure, lying curled in the tub, she didn’t think he’d be able to respond even if he could hear her, his body jerking as a figure loomed over him. He looked awful, his body covered in bruises and hair matted down against his forehead with blood. There was blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth, and he didn’t seem to be breathing properly.

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop it! Stop hurting him! _Stop it!_ ” She scrambled forward, looking at the way Billy’s body jerked as whatever force it was laid another blow on him. “Billy, Billy, _Billy_ ,” she chanted, reaching out to grasp at him, to pull him away. His lips were tinged blue and his eyes were clouded, blood dripping down his temple and onto his eyelid, slipping down over his eye. “ _Billy_ ,” she cried out, but as her fingers made contact, the vision shifted and turned to smoke.

She jerked as she came back to herself, the white noise filling her ears, tearing off the blindfold, her cheeks burning and the heat of tears scouring marks down her cheeks. Her eyes took a moment to focus on the concerned looks on the faces around him and another moment to realize she was being hugged and that there was a hand in her hair.

“Did you,” Will began but stopped, his hands shaking a little bit watching Joyce stroke at Jane’s hair as tears leaked from her eyes, her gaze unfocused and her hands weakly grasping at the arm Joyce had around her.

“Do you know where he is?” Max asked for him, her gaze hopeful, but worried. She had heard the whispered words of ‘stop hurting him’ and Billy’s name, knew better than to hope for him to be safe, but alive? Alive she could hope for.

Jane nodded her head, blinking rapidly, a new set of tears falling, her eyelashes clinging together, lips trembling. “Yes,” she whispered; her voice thick with emotion. “Danger,” she whispered, swallowing thickly as she pulled away from Joyce’s embrace to rise to her feet, wiping at her face, her blindfold around her neck.

“Danger,” Jim asked as Jane hurried to grab her coat and tug on her shoes, all of them following suit. “Danger where, kid?” he pressed, but Jane didn’t respond, simply urging them to hurry as she ran out of the door, waiting impatiently by the car door for Jim to unlock it, clambering in.

Joyce grabbed her coat and slipped on her shoes, the kids following suit, the three piling into Joyce’s car while Jim boarded his own, tearing out of the driveway and listening to Jane give him instructions on where to go, recognizing where they were heading as he turned onto the next road.

“Why are we at my house?” Max asked as she tumbled out of Joyce’s car, Will following suit, but Jane was already running up the walkway, the door flying open at her behest, tearing into the house with a murderous look in her eyes, Jim jogging up after her.

They all stumbled into the house, taking in the couch that was slanted, the wet splotches on the floor, droplets of red staining it, gelatin like substances smearing along patches of the wall. Joyce froze; looking at Jim with a worried look, fear on her features, but the kids tore further into the house right after Jane, not pausing, until they came into the entrance of the bathroom where Jane was kneeling next to a near unconscious Billy who was covered in some thick, gooey substance, dirt, and blood.

“Billy,” Max called, falling to her knees next to Jane who was pushing Billy’s hair away from his face, concern on her features. Billy’s gaze, dazed as it was, slipped over to meet Max’s wide, panicked one, and his lips quirked upwards into a weak mimicry of a smile. “Will, get your mom,” she ordered, looking back at him, her hands grasping one of Billy’s shakily, “and get Hopper. He needs a hospital.”

Will looked at Billy’s prone form and his barely rising chest before he looked up to meet Max and Jane’s eyes, nodding his head and hurrying from the bathroom and back to the living area, yelling for Hopper and Joyce to come and help them.

“He needs a hospital!”

 

 

 

“Billy, you absolute dick, I thought you were dead,” Max hissed, but her voice was thick with emotion and her eyes shone with tears, her hands shaking as she grasped Billy’s in hers. It had been three days before they were allowed to see him, Billy having to be stabilized and his wounds taken care of, and then needing to wake up before they deemed it okay for them to go in.

“Watch your fucking language,” he grunted, throat parched. “Sorry, Max,” he sighed and his voice was hoarse and cracked, eyes fluttering for a moment as he worked through the haze of the painkillers, swallowing slightly. “It’s not like I meant to get trapped there.”

“Trapped where,” Jim interrupted, entering the room with Joyce and Will. Jane was right behind him, a hat on her head and her coat zipped up as far as it could go, chin tucked under the collar, shielding her face as much as possible. Billy remembered Will mentioning something about her being sort of a ‘wanted’ person.

“The other side or whatever,” he breathed out, clicking the button on the bed so that he could sit, grunting as it tugged at his stitches when he shifted to accommodate himself to the new position.

“Billy, what exactly happened?” Joyce whispered, coaxing him softly.

He shrugged, hissing again as his arm and ribs ached. He had elected to not use a lot of painkillers, going against the doctor’s desires, and the pain was still blinding in some ways. His head was still pounding, but the doctor’s had said he should be mostly fine by the time the month was out, although his head would take a bit longer to heal completely.

“I crashed,” he responded, brow furrowed.

“I checked all of Hawkins. Your car was nowhere to be found,” Hopped interjected, brow furrowed.

“I have a job in the next town over. I was driving back from there. I crashed outside of Hawkins, ended up in a ditch, I think. There was something—someone—in the road. I don’t know what.”

“What happened after?”

Billy’s lips pursed and Will, Max, and Jane all walked closer, looking at him with that childlike curiosity that Billy thought was so amazing and pure, but also kind of hated since it was what had gotten him into this mess to begin with.

“I woke up _there_.”

“In the _Upside Down_ ,” Jane whispered, brow furrowed.

He nodded.

“How long were you there?”

“Twelve days, I think,” Billy responded and Joyce looked absolutely distraught at the news, her eyes brimming with tears. Billy didn’t really understand why she was so broken up about it. It wasn’t like he was related to her or something—he wasn’t someone to care about intensely. But there she was, a trembling hand over his lips, looking like Billy had just killed her dog. “There was another small gate in the woods. I got out through there and walked home. That’s where you guys found me.”

“Danger,” Jane whispered, placing her hands on the bed sheets, fingers curling in the fabric. “You were hurting.”

Billy looked at the kid, meeting her brown eyed gaze with his own. There was a panic that was building inside of him. He had been hurting. He had stumbled into the house, mouth thick with the viscous fluid that the Upside Down was practically covered in and blood, almost delirious from the pain.

He remembered Neil rushing to him as he had practically fallen through the door, grabbing him under his arms to keep him upright, but keeping space between them. He remembered Neil’s worried voice in his ear, a part of him feeling warm at the idea that maybe the man did care.

And then he remembered the cold of the ceramic beneath him, the unforgiving solidity of the bathtub and the strength in his father’s body as he screamed at him, hitting and yelling—how he was considered a missing person, how he couldn’t disappear like that, how dare he get into a fight, how could he show up in such a state, how would he have felt in his place. And he remembered the conflict inside, the way his emotions swirled in a panic inside of him, unsure of whether to hate the man laying his hands on him or love him because maybe he did care, just the smallest bit.

He knew which was right.

But at the same time, he didn’t.

He wasn’t sure what it was that passed in between their eyes, but Jane seemed to get this look of understanding in her eyes, and her big brown eyes shined with emotion, lips pressing together into a thin line as if to stop their trembling. Her head bobbed a bit.

It was like a promise to keep quiet for now.

He tried to show his gratitude with his eyes.

He wasn’t sure if he succeeded, but it seemed to be good enough for her.

 “Listen,” he said instead, “can you call my boss and tell him I was in an accident? I can’t get fired,” he whispered, lungs straining as the pain in his ribs became more prominent with very breath.

Hopper nodded. “I’ll get your car, too.”

“It shouldn’t be very banged up. I didn’t hit anything, as far as I know. Window might be broken, though.”

Hopper gave a small nod before walking to Joyce. “Can you watch her for me while I take care of this?”

Joyce blinked, looking up at Jim and nodding her head, wiping her eyes as he gaze flickered between the kids gathered around Billy’s hospital bed and Jim’s own eyes. “Yeah, yeah, don’t worry,” she breathed out, voice shaking, but she put on a determined smile, listening to the kids talk amongst themselves as Billy wavered between consciousness and sleep.

Jim nodded, giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, whispering a ‘thank you’ as he left the room to go do what he had said he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments below! <3


	11. o11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have anything to really say this time except that I'm working hard to get as many chapters as I can pre-written while I have some free time, so we'll see how that goes.

Word had gotten around fast that Billy Hargrove had been in a serious accident and that he ended up in the hospital. Steve couldn’t really believe it. It seemed like such a mundane answer to him being missing for almost two weeks. He listened to people talking about it, heard them saying that it was expected.

“You’ve seen how he drives,” Nancy told him. “It was bound to happen.”

“Yeah, but in this weather,” Steve responded dubiously, eyebrow cocked. “The guy isn’t stupid. And if he was in the hospital, don’t you think that Max would’ve known? She was really worried.”

“Maybe they just didn’t find him immediately,” Jonathan reasoned.

“Two weeks after he crashed? He should be dead, then,” Steve muttered, shaking his head as he headed to his car, Nancy and Jonathan following after him. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because he was missing for two weeks and then it turns out that the reason is that he was in a car accident? Yeah, no, doesn’t add up,” he griped, shoving his hands in the pockets of his coat, fingering his keys there. “When shit doesn’t add up in this town, it’s dangerous.”

“Well, it’s not our business, anyway. We’re all okay, and that’s what’s important,” Jonathan soothed, Nancy humming in agreement. Steve begged to differ, remembering the look on Max’s face every day as he picked her up at her house to take her to school, the way she would pause at the door and look back at it, her gaze then flicking down the street as if waiting for Billy to pull up with a roaring engine and blasting music. He remembered the way she would scan the parking lot every day when he picked her up from school, searching for the blue Camaro, her lips pressed into a thin line.

Frankly, the worry and sadness on her face made it his business, and the story wasn’t adding up.

“Whatever—I have to go pick up the dipshits. See you guys tomorrow,” Steve grumbled, unlocking his car and slipping inside, setting his bag to the side as he pulled out of the parking lot.

 

 

 

“Harrington,” Billy greeted as he walked into the room behind Max, watching Max make herself at home in the chair by his bed, pulling out her books and passing Billy his bag. He guessed that was why Max had taken longer than usual. Had she been picking up Billy’s schoolwork?

“Hargrove,” he greeted, awkwardly. Billy was sitting on the bed, reclining against the folded mattress. The hospital gown covered his chest and the blanket covered him from the waist down, but Billy’s arm was bandaged and in a sling and there were bandages around his throat, around his knuckles, small ones dotting his face, stitches on his temple. He looked awful, but at the same time he looked the same. The fire was not gone from his eyes, but his expression was drawn tight in pain and exhaustion. “I, uh, heard you were in a car accident. I just—I wanted to see for myself that you were fine.”

The corners of Billy’s lips quirked upwards into a smirk, a slight laugh escaping him, Max’s eyes flicking up to look at them as she toed off her shoes and leaned back in the chair, stretching her legs out and setting her feet on the side of the bed, using her thighs as a sort of clipboard. “Wow, Harrington, I didn’t know you cared,” he drawled as he got out his schoolwork one handed, accepting the pen Max handed him without as much as a glare.

“I, uh,” Steve floundered, rubbing the back of his neck. How did he say that he didn’t really care without sounding like a douche? It wasn’t that he cared a lot about hurting Billy’s feelings, but the guy was in a hospital bed. It didn’t seem right to be a douche at that moment.

“I’m teasing, Harrington. Lighten up,” Billy snorted, shaking his head a bit. Steve gave a hesitant smile, watching the male’s eyes twinkle with amusement. He could still hear Billy’s apology ringing in his ears, making his chest tighten a bit.

“It wasn’t just a car crash, was it?” He blurted out, hand slapping over his mouth almost immediately after the words left his mouth. Billy looked up at him, amused glimmer leaving his eyes and his lips thinning. Max looked up from her homework, a wary look coming onto her face. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to say that—that was out of line. I’m sorry.” He was floundering again, keeping his hands clasped over his mouth still, feeling absolutely awful.

“You’re right,” is all Billy told him, looking down at his schoolwork and then over at Max, something odd in his eyes. “The nurses popped by to say Joyce dropped some food off. I told them you would grab it,” he said and it wasn’t an order, but it was close enough to one, and Max nodded her head, rising from her seat to go down to the nurses’ station. Once Max was safely out of the room, Billy let out a long sigh, turning tired eyes to Harrington. “You have no manner of tact, do you?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” he immediately bit back and then sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” Billy sighed. “She was fucking crying, okay? I’m trying to remind her of it as little as possible.”

“You’re in a hospital bed,” Steve pointed out, and Billy gave him another tired glare, setting down his pen to regard Steve with his full attention.

“What do you think happened?”

He blinked, fiddling with the edge of his jacket. He looked up at Billy, met his eyes, and he ended up shrugging his shoulders, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know, man—I don’t know. I just know that the accident isn’t all of it.”

“You’re right,” Billy repeated, gaze flicking to the door. “Ask the Chief about it or Joyce,” he finished with after a brief pause, the door opening up not a second later to let in Max who was holding two bags of food.

“You haven’t eaten all day?” Max spoke as she shut the door behind herself.

“Why eat the crap they serve here when Joyce was bringing actual food,” Billy responded, grin appearing on his face, Max rolling her eyes in response. Steve didn’t think it reached his eyes, but he couldn’t be sure. Annoyance seemed to always be permanently lining Billy’s features, although it was mixed in with the pain that was pulling his face tight. Steve watched her set the bags down on the table to the side, digging out the containers, one with mashed potatoes, another with some pasta and ground meat, and a container of chicken with no bones. “The pasta’s yours,” Billy told her and Max nodded, handing over the container of mashed potatoes with a fork, the container opened.

Steve couldn’t help but find it sweet that Max was being so conscious of her brother’s injuries.

“You don’t have to stay, Steve,” Max broke the silence, looking over at where he was standing a bit away from the foot of the bed. “Hopper’s going to give me a ride when he stops by later.”

“Are you,” he stopped himself, barely managing to keep his eyes from slipping to Billy, keeping his focus on Max. She seemed to know what he meant, though, because her lips pursed a bit and she tucked her hair behind her ear, giving a jerky nod that spoke strongly of determination—not so much confidence.

“Drive safely,” she told him, giving a small smile before returning to opening the container of chicken, putting some into her bowl of pasta, her smile widening as Billy grumbled about her stealing his food.

His eyes met Billy’s for a short beat as he moved to exit the room He wasn’t sure what exactly passed between their gazes, but it made something sit heavily in his stomach, and he closed the door behind him quietly as he left.

 

 

 

The nights at the hospital were quiet and sterile, clinical even in slumber. It was a feeling Jim knew too well from his own overnight stays there. Max was sitting next to her brother once again, the two talking quietly, something like frustration on Max’s face and exasperation on Billy’s. The boy looked exhausted even if some of the fire remained in his eyes, and Jim wondered if it was actually a better alternative to the rage he had previously possessed.

He didn’t really think so.

“Time to head out, kid,” he called as he opened the door, watching Max turn her furrowed brow look to him before her gaze was snapping back to her brother, looking about to say something, but Billy cocked an eyebrow and she let out an annoyed huff but set about gathering her stuff. “I have to talk with your brother for a second,” he told her and her eyes immediately shot to Billy again before nodding her head, slinging her bag over her shoulder.

“I’ll be in the hall,” she said as she walked out of the room, not even telling her brother goodbye, frown still in place.

It was a small relief that she didn’t slam the door as she walked out.

“Care to share what that was about?” he drawled, walking closer to the bed and sitting himself down in the recently vacated chair.

“She’s mad I’m not going to the house tomorrow,” he responded, looking down at his hand.

“Where are you planning on going?”

“Work—catch up on my hours. Hospital bills aren’t cheap.”

“You’re doing that tomorrow?”

Billy gave a one-shoulder shrug. “You said my car’s fine, so I’ve got a ride. Besides, Susan isn’t going to pay for this. Dad sure as hell won’t either.”

“Speaking of mister and missus Hargrove,” Jim began, leaning forward in the chair, watching Billy’s fingers curl into a fist, muscles in his arm tensing, “They haven’t stopped by to visit you.” He watched Billy’s gaze flick up to meet his, watched the conflict in his eyes. The emotions warred across his face, impossible to discern just a single one, before they all simply disappeared, leaving behind a blank expanse and dull blue eyes. “Listen,” he sighed, waging a war inside his head on what he should do, “how about I pick you up tomorrow and you take El with you to work?”

Billy cocked an eyebrow, confusion taking over his features—a reprieve from the emotional battle he had been undergoing internally. “Why?”

“Because you’ll be driving with one hand, the girl has to get out for a bit or she’ll sneak out, and this way I can make sure you come back.”

“You think I won’t?”

“I’d like the peace of mind,” he responded with. “And so would your sister,” he tacked on at the end, watching how Billy’s lips pressed into a tight line as if holding something back, brow furrowed. “I’ll give you money for gas and some food. And you just keep her entertained and get something into her other than sweets.”

The boy still looked confused and a bit of the conflict had returned to his expression, but he ultimately nodded, and that was good enough for Jim at the moment, so he returned the nod, rising from the seat and heading to the door.

“Get some rest.”

 

 

 

Rest doesn’t come, hasn’t come for the past few nights. The hospital isn’t silent at night—open twenty-four hours, seven days a week—but the wing Billy’s room is in is, and that makes him anxious. He finds himself waiting for a crash of the chair as a demo-dog leapt out of nowhere, or the sound of flesh sliding on metal as yellow-brown fingers curl around the railing and clawed hands descend.

He expects to see dark skies with rolling clouds lighting up with red lightning and a smoking figure forming in the distance out of the window. He expects the wall to break open like an egg and for a fully sized Demogorgon to squeeze their way through and for the flower petal face to open and gape at him, ready to devour him whole.

He holds the knife that was in the bag of food Joyce brought that day tightly in his hand, taking slow and deep breaths as he stares up at the ceiling, nudging the blanket up higher to cover his shoulder, focusing on the feel of the fabric brushing the skin of his neck and up to the underside of his jaw. He focuses on the weight of the silverware in his hand, the ache in his ribs that becomes more pronounced every time they expand, and the soreness in his shoulder where his arm is in a sling.

He tilted his gaze to focus on the window and kept his eyes on it as he counted his breaths, fighting away the fear and anxiety. He didn’t know if they could smell fear. He didn’t know if they could hear how hard his heart beat. He watched the window and watched as the sun came up, stretching to the side and tucking the knife into the folder on the table behind some papers and settling in the bed to pretend to have just woken up as the nurse came in to tell him he was clear to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments below! <3


	12. o12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am beyond sorry for how long it has taken me to get this chapter out. I honestly had no idea so much time had passed, but I had a research paper I needed to finish (I worked myself so hard I have successfully made myself ill). Thankfully, though, the research paper is now done, so updates will be much, MUCH, more frequent now. I am very sorry for the long wait.

Jane was an easily entertained girl, Billy found out, as she took great interest in the record player in the store. She toyed with the discs, ran her fingers along the lines, and looked through the hole in the middle, sticking her finger through and wriggling it, catching Billy’s eye and giving a small smile, almost shy in nature. When she walked behind the counter to stand beside him, Billy hoisted her up onto the surface with one arm, wincing at the pain that lanced up his side, but it was easier to meet her gaze this way.

She fingered one of the cassette tapes to the side, picking it up and twisting it around between her fingers before presenting it to Billy with a questioning look. He plucked it from her fingers, leaning against the counter. “It’s a cassette tape. It’s like the records you were playing with.”

“Music,” she whispered, accepting the tape back as he handed it to her, watching her look at it in awe. “Play,” she wondered as she held the tape back out to him. It was one of his own tapes that he brought in from the car to play softly in the background while he worked, but the day had been slow, so he nodded his head, moving to the radio at the side. Jane leaned to the side on the counter to watch him switch out the tapes, eyes wide and curious.

The music began to play after a beat and her expression lit up, legs crossing atop the counter, her elbows resting on her thighs, hands folded under her chin. She looked mesmerized by the sounds coming out of the radio. “Name,” she asked as the song finished, the next one beginning.

“AC/DC,” he responded easily, sitting on the chair behind the counter. “It’s a good group.”

Jane nodded her head, smiling at the radio. “Bitchin’,” was the response she graced him with and he grinned.

“Yeah, they’re really rad.”

“Rad,” she echoed; her confusion was clear on her face.

“It means cool or awesome or,” he grinned a little, “ _bitchin_ ’. You hear it more in Cali than you do here.”

“Where is Cali?”

He winced, looking down at his hand. “Far from here,” he responded, and he couldn’t quite keep the longing out of his voice. She gave him a weak smile, something like understanding in her eyes, and Billy returned it, accepting the hand she held out to him and letting her play with the rings on his finger.

He wasn’t sure why it was that he let her so close. There was something about her. He figured that it was the way she didn’t look at him with pity in her eyes, but with the same sort of pain, a mirror of his own expression. Maybe it was the way that she kept quiet about what she had seen as was their unspoken deal. Maybe it was that Billy was trying to be a better person and this was one of Max’s friends. He wasn’t sure.

The bell ringing brought him out of whatever daze he had found himself in and Jane let go of his hand to look over at the door, hands braced against the counter top to keep her balance. It was a woman, older lady, her blonde hair—dyed—pinned up into a bun, bangs thin but covering her forehead. Her smiled was kind, painted lips quirking upwards in greeting, making the soft wrinkles around her mouth and eyes more pronounced.

Billy thought she looked very warm.

Jane seemed to agree, her eyes following the lady in open curiosity, but thankfully remaining seated on the counter.

Billy had to remind himself that Jane was socially awkward, not stupid.

The lady was wearing a long, light brown coat, wool, and had her bag resting in the crook of her elbow, glove covered hands resting above it. She made her way to the counter, glittering blue eyes resting on him, and he rose from his seat, putting on his most charming smile.

“How may I help you today, ma’am,” he asked, and her expression slackened a bit in alarm.

“Oh, dear,” she let out, her voice breathy, and Billy’s brow furrowed slightly in confusion. “What happened?”

He looked down at his bandaged arm, still in a sling, and thought of the bandages over the cuts on his face and the slight gauntness in his face from going twelve days with only a single package of saltine crackers, and winced internally. He probably didn’t look like the picture of health. “Car accident, ma’am, unfortunately,” he responded. “How can I be of service?”

“Oh,” her hands fluttered a bit, her expression one of concern. Jane’s mouth opened a little, mouthing the surprised ‘oh’ the woman had let out, eyes filled with wonder. “I hope you heal up well, dear. I was just looking for some music.”

Billy nodded, smiling at her. As she requested his help, he came out from behind the counter and showed her the collection they had for the singer, looking up to catch Jane as she watched with that same look of fascination that had been on her face since she had arrived, a sliver of fondness emerging.

She was such a quiet girl.

A part of him wished Max was like that, but he knew he would never want Max to be like Jane. Max was her own person, a fiery girl with a confident stride and pride almost as strong as his own. She was meant to be loud, meant to stand out—her hair the clear indicator for that. Billy knew the only part of him that wished Max was quiet was the part that wondered if her being like that would stop Neil from going at him.

He knew that Neil wouldn’t stop, though, even if God himself had come down from heaven and told him he needed to.

Neil was messed up like that.

So was Billy, when he thought about it.

He didn’t like to think about it.

He was changing, and that was what was important.

Bringing her back to the counter as she chose out some records, he rang her up, handing her what he owed her in change and smiling as she left, the woman waving at Jane as she passed and Jane waving back hesitantly.

Jane looked at the door for a few seconds after the woman had disappeared before turning to look at Billy. “Billy hurt by Papa,” she stated, her words blunt and making Billy’s stomach twist and nausea build up inside of him. He wanted to tell her to shut up, that she didn’t know what she was talking about—something, _anything_. He ended up doing none of that as Jane tugged up the sleeve of her coat, turning her arm slightly so that Billy could see the numbers tattooed into the skin and the faint line of a scar disappearing under the fabric of the jacket. “Me, too,” she whispered.

He looked at her, felt something inside of him break. This kid, so young, had gone through what he had gone through. How could someone do that to such an understanding, eager to learn child? How could someone do that to a child, period?

He ignored the fact that his father had done the same to him because he was different. He had deserved it. He had to have deserved it. He deserved it now. Maybe back then, before he had even started to do anything remotely bad, it was like that scenario people sometimes made up—the scenario of ‘if you had baby Hitler sitting next to you and you knew what he would do, what he would become, wouldn’t you kill him’.

Maybe his dad knew that he would end up just as fucked up and was trying to beat it out of him.

But _Jane_ —Jane didn’t deserve that.

“Billy, angry,” she inquired next. “Billy, want to hurt others,” she continued, and he honestly thought he might puke—which wouldn’t do his ribs any good, “because you hurt.” She tugged her sleeve down again, folding her hands in her lap and swinging her legs. “Me, too,” she admitted quietly.

And there it was. That had to be the reason behind the instant connection he had felt to her. Some part of his subconscious had maybe seen the signs in her that he knew he also exhibited, or had exhibited at some point in time. This kid was just as messed up as he was, but here she was, on the other side, having friends and a family and a home.

She had come out of it and was working towards the same goal Billy was—to be better.

“Do you hate your, uh,” he pressed his fingers against the surface of the table, hard, chewing on the inside of his cheek, “Papa?”

She looked down at her hands and then over at his, pressing her fingers onto the table hard enough the skin turned white. “Yes,” she responded, her wrist twitching a bit, “no.”

He looked over at her, blue eyes meeting brown, and gave a weak smile.

“Me, too.”

 

 

 

 It took a week before Billy was healed up enough to make the long trek through the woods with Hopper and Jane to where he had climbed out of the Upside Down. The snow was starting to melt at this point, now mid-March, but the cold remained and it made him shiver even with the double layers he was wearing.

Jane walked beside him, the Chief bringing up the rear, shot gun in hand and ready to shoot at anything that dared to come near them. The man had wanted to wait till Billy was fully healed in case they had to go running for their lives, but giving the gate more time to be open meant more time for it to grow and more time for more things to come out.

They all wanted that less, so Hopper had relented eventually, but he had an extra gun on him—apart from his standard police one and the shot gun in his hands—just in case. The guy insisted that no one would be left behind if he could help it.

Billy was fairly certain he’d shove Jane at Hopper and tell him to run.

Thankfully, they had encountered nothing yet, which was fortunate, to say the least.

The light reflecting off the snow hurt his eyes and made his head pound, so he kept his gaze focused on the trunks of the trees, only letting his gaze flicker down when he started to get uncertain as to where he was placing his feet. Jane kept pace with him well, although it was probably a side effect of his slow pace. Hopper didn’t seem to mind the slowness either, probably grateful that Billy was taking it easy like he had asked him to.

“I don’t want you passing out on me,” was what he had said, and Billy had rolled his eyes even though a part of him considered that a distinct possibility.

He wondered what would happen if he did. Would Hopper carry him out of the woods? Or would Jane levitate him out? Maybe they would just sit by him and wait till he came to.

Maybe they’d leave him behind.

The last one made his heart clench, but some part of him considered that the most logical course of action. Why would they do anything else?

“How’d you manage to find another gate,” Hopper finally asked, eyes trained on the area around them, clearly alert and ready to go, but his gaze was also attentive and Billy pursed his lips as he thought.

“I don’t know. I followed the tracks, really,” he responded. “There were quite a few. I figured one of them had to lead to a gate, so I chose one and followed it.”

“Did you find any others?”

“Another two, but they had some heavy traffic, so I got as far from them as I could.”

Hopper nodded, looking over at him. There was something in his eyes, maybe pride or some kind of admiration—like Billy making it out of there was something to be rewarded. It made him distinctly uncomfortable and acutely aware of his own skin and how it felt too small at the moment and how every breath ached and how one of his arms was all but useless at the moment—his fucking dominant one, too—and how if he twisted a certain way, the stitches on his chest pulled, and how the cold stung the ones on his temple, but he couldn’t do anything about it because a hat stung more and he didn’t want to mess up his hair that he had been letting grow out.

“Do you remember where those are?”

Billy nodded.

“We’ll come back to seal those some other day. Just do your best not to forget them,” Hopper settled on, as much of a compromise as he was willing to offer considering Billy and Jane had worked together to convince him to let them go and close this one.

“Max,” Jane piped up from beside him and Billy looked at her, grateful for the fact that she was wearing dark colors that didn’t sting his eyes as he looked at her. Not like Max whose red hair sent a stab of pain through his skull every time the sun came through the clouds and hit it. Max had taken to wearing a hat around him, though, like the subtly considerate step-sister she was.

Billy was grateful that everything seemed to be going well between them—the whole ‘making amends’ thing.

“She’s good.”

“Not mad anymore,” Hopper followed up with, cocking an eyebrow.

“No,” Billy responded, fingers curling where his hand was shoved in his pocket. “Turns out she asked Susan how we’d afford the hospital bills and Susan told her it was dad’s _responsibility_ ,” the word sounded bitter on his tongue, brought with it the phantom pain of a hard hand on his shoulder and an equally hard fist to the gut, “to pay for them—and dad has other shit to deal with.”

“Language,” Hopper cautioned.

“Shit,” Jane echoed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. My sincerest apologies, again, for how long it took to get this out.
> 
> Let me know what you thought in the comments below! <3


	13. o13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, wow, what is this? Me, updating at a decent time? Yes, sir, yes, sir. And, what is this? Some actual Harringrove content after thirteen chapters of virtually nothing? Yes, sir, yes, sir. (Don't get used to it, though XD)

It took another week before the other two gates Billy knew about were also closed. By then, March was practically over and Billy was, unfortunately, back at school. He didn’t want to be back at school, but duty called and he had already missed the week after he got let out of the hospital making up for lost time at work, so he kind of seriously had to go.

He mentally thanked Max for bringing him his schoolwork, although he had made sure to thank her in person and verbally.

He was doing better. They were doing better.

He wanted to keep it that way.

His arm was mostly healed, the break having been small and neat—something he thanked whatever deity existed for, although he was also pretty sure that it was attributed to his driving skills, as well. A crash was a crash, but good driving managed to minimize his injuries some.

The day had been long, filled with people looking at him and whispering. They were probably wondering how he got into an accident, if an accident was all it had been. They probably wondered how bad he had looked when it originally happened, seeing as he had been missing for twelve days, then in the hospital for a week and out of it for another week.

It had practically been a month since he had shown up.

The looks got old really fast, though, as did the whispers, and he wanted to shoot himself by the time he got to his second class, but he did his best to hide it.

When lunch rolled around, though, Billy found himself leaning against his car, enjoying the blessed quiet of the outdoors, not many people deciding to brave the chill before necessary, but Billy was willing to brave anything if it meant getting away from the stares for a bit.

“Hargrove,” Steve called as he approached, one hand shoved into his pocket, the other holding a bag of what Billy guessed was food. Billy let him approach, giving a slight nod in greeting. He couldn’t find the energy in him to do more than that, instead simply regarding Harrington silently as the male came to a slow stop in front of him. “Mind if I join you,” he asked, and Billy gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, watching Harrington lean against the car next to him, opening up the bag he had been carrying.

“What are you doing here, Harrington,” he finally asked as the male pulled out a wrapped sandwich and an apple, holding out the apple to him.

“I talked to Hopper.”

He blinked, then sighed, accepting the apple without fuss, wiping it on the fabric of the thermal he had on before taking a bite.

Steve unwrapped his sandwich and took a bite, other hand shoved back into his pocket, chewing in contemplative silence. “Did you really end up there?” He finally settled on, looking over at Billy and meeting his gaze with his own curious one. At Billy’s nod, though, his expression shuttered, one of pain coming up to take the place of curiosity. “Fuck,” he breathed out, shaking his head a bit, lips pursed. He looked like he had lost his appetite, but he took another bite of his sandwich anyway.

They stood there in silence for the remainder of the lunch period, Steve toeing the ground as he chewed and Billy counting the rows of car around them and adding up the numbers on the license plates just to give himself something to do.

“Listen,” Steve finally spoke again after a moment, hands empty and tucking into his pockets, “how about you stop by my place this weekend? I think we should talk.”

Billy wanted to say ‘no’, wanted to tell him that they shouldn’t talk, that there was a chance that the rage would come back once he wasn’t so tired—maybe when he least expected it—and that he wasn’t safe to be around, that Steve should be scared of him. He wanted to remind the guy of what he had done, that he wasn’t worth the kindness or forgiveness—not from him.

He wasn’t worth the forgiveness from anyone.

He wanted to say ‘no’, but one look at Steve’s eyes, the hesitation he saw there, the nervousness, the worry, made him swallow down the two letter word and nod, only slightly reluctantly.

Steve nodded his head, a slight smile appearing on his lips. “Great—uh, Saturday at nine,” he inquired, taking a small step back, ready to head back into the school. “I’ll provide breakfast.”

Billy regarded him silently, wishing he had the energy to fight the request, but he just felt all kinds of drained, like he was functioning on fumes only. “Alright,” he responded with instead, nodding a bit.

Steve gave another nod, as if confirming it all in his own head, even going so far as to whisper the words under his breath like it would solidify them in his head. “I’ll see you then, Hargrove.”

“See you then.”

 

 

 

“I heard you were in an accident, but I didn’t think it was so bad,” Karen Wheeler gushed over him as he dropped Max off, only having gotten out to of the car because Max urged him to, saying Will had been dying to see him with his own two eyes and know he was okay. Of course, Karen Wheeler hadn’t occurred to him when he agreed until she had a hand on his shoulder, fingering his hair.

He held back a shudder, giving her a bit of a smile. It felt tight, though—strained.

He wanted her hand off of his shoulder and away from his hair, but he just put on a charming smile and let her hand continue there, following Max inside, ignoring the way her hand slipped off his shoulder and down his back. God, he couldn’t help but pity her. What kind of person didn’t even try to satisfy their partner to the point where they were throwing themselves at a literal child?

He forced the pity away.

He didn’t like pity directed at him, and he refused to direct it at others. That’d be hypocritical, although he was all kinds of hypocritical, if he was being honest.

He pulled away to stand at the entrance to the basement, listening to Max tell Will to go upstairs for a moment, looking down the stairs and unable to stop the slight smile that automatically came onto his lips as Will rushed to the foot of the stairs and looked up to see him there, Max standing behind him. The kid beamed, running up the stairs hurriedly, Max staying behind to explain away the situation before the other kids got up to follow.

“You’re okay,” Will breathed out, standing on the porch with Billy, still beaming—practically glowing. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

“Of course I am,” he intoned carefully, feeling awkward and out of place on the receiving end of Will’s honest relief. “Didn’t Max tell you? I’m practically impossible to get rid of.”

“She mentioned it once or twice,” Will laughed, looking down at his shoes shyly. “It’s different, though—hearing that you’re fine from someone else and not being able to confirm it with your own eyes.” Billy felt his stomach churn. “And you didn’t look okay when we found you.”

The, by now, familiar pang of guilt made its reappearance, making Billy’s lips purse and his eyes shift away. He wasn’t good at this. It was a blessing in his book that Max’s other little friends didn’t like him at all. It meant he only had to deal with this from one person.

“Hey, I, uh,” he fidgeted with the hem of his coat before shoving his hands in his pockets, “I wanted to thank you for that day in—in the car.”

Billy blinked, looking down at the boy. This was yet another kid who had gone through hell and back and had come out on the other side. He deserved so much and yet here he was, having panic attacks and feeling terrified and thanking the worst person ever for letting him hold his hands as he struggled to breathe.

It broke his heart just as Jane’s admissions had.

He cleared his throat. “Don’t mention it,” he chuckled awkwardly, giving Will’s shoulder a pat.

Being nice was one of the most awkward things he had ever had to do in his life.

 

 

 

Steve watched the male before him who ate his eggs with little to no fuss, seeming content to remain in silence as he cut off a piece of pancake, dipping it in the pool of syrup on his plate, tongue coming out to lick away a stray drop.

He tried not to stare.

“Um, right,” he cleared his throat a little awkwardly, brow furrowing, his eyes flickering down to his barely touched breakfast, scooping up some eggs and shoving them in his mouth so that he could think of what to say instead of saying something thoughtless, “I wanted to talk to you about, well, everything? But I want to start with that night—at the Byers’ house.”

He watched the way Billy’s movements stuttered to a stop, blue eyes flicking up to meet his, and Steve swallowed thickly.

Maybe that hadn’t been the best conversation starter.

“Uh, I get nightmares,” he stuttered out, “some nights—well, most nights—about that night, and other nights. Wow, I said ‘night’ a lot in that sentence.”

That got him a small snort of laughter which eased the tension just the barest bit.

“It’s not so much what you did that gives me nightmares, although I haven’t forgiven you for that.” He almost missed the ‘good’ that Billy whispered into his pancakes, but it reached his ears nonetheless and made his words stutter for a beat. “It’s how I felt at that moment and then in other moments. I, uh,” he looked down at his food, “a part of me kind of hoped you’d finish the job,” he admitted quietly and saying the words out loud made it so much more real than just having the realization at night in the comfort of his own bed and lamp light.

Billy stopped eating again, this time setting down his fork.

“It’s awful, I know. I don’t even know what actually finishing the job would’ve done to you, but it was just a thought that popped into my head and then I really thought you had finished the job, and,” he gave a wry smile, stabbing his fork into his eggs, “I was just so grateful for a moment. It meant I wouldn’t wake up every night screaming or have to see Nancy with another guy or come home and not even be able to tell my parents what’s been bothering me because I signed a dumb non-disclosure agreement and they would’ve checked me into a mental institution regardless of that fact.”

Billy’s lips pursed, and Steve thought he kind of looked like he wanted to say something, but tension was clear in the line of his body. It occurred to Steve that this might have not been the best conversation starter either, but it was also too late to go back.

“I barely remember that night,” Billy finally let out after a bit of silence where Steve had been silently contemplating whether he would die from hypothermia or drowning first if he went outside and jumped in the pool—all the while conveniently ignoring the fact that the pool was emptied every time it got too cold to swim and it had yet to be refilled.

His head jerked up and when he blinked, a few tears slipped out that he hadn’t even noticed had gathered to begin with. “What?”

Billy ate another slice of his pancakes, licking his lips afterwards. Steve wasn’t really sure how the guy could eat in the midst of this kind of conversation, but he guessed maybe that was a side effect of having been in the Upside Down—or not having eaten because you were in the Upside Down.

“I remember what I did, but it’s hazy.” The male pushed his eggs into his syrup, taking another bite. “I’m not—it’s not an excuse,” he muttered, tonguing the inside of his cheek before looking up at Steve to finally meet his gaze again. “I did what I did. But,” he gave a small shrug, “sometimes, rarely, when I get really angry, it just all sort of blurs. I just remember being really angry and you were there and you had lied and were trying to force me to leave and,” Billy trailed off. “All I could think was that _no one tells me what to do_.”

Steve looked at the male before him, watched him tuck back into his pancakes, taking a sip of the lemonade Steve had also provided, his eyes flicking up to meet Steve’s. He looked at him and found himself finally deciding what he wanted to do.

“For what it’s worth,” he began, picking up his own glass, “your apology was worth something.” He smiled and felt his heart feel a bit lighter at the slight answering smile he got from Billy, letting their glasses clink together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments below! <3


	14. o14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I am so sorry for the late update. I know I said I would do better, but I do have some good reasons. My internet went out the day I was going to post and was out the entirety of the day, and then my power went out. My power is back now, hence me posting, but it is also in danger of going out again, so there's that.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this chapter!

April came and with its arrival came the true ending of winter.

Things were quiet and for that Billy was grateful. But the quiet also made anxiety brew in his chest and set his teeth on edge. The quiet was too soothing—the calm before the storm. It made him keep a sharper eye on Max, made him a bit distracted.

Being distracted, though, came with its own bunch of consequences.

The cold left and with its departure, the return of weather where Billy could wear his shirts back down to his navel came.

Except—he couldn't.

He couldn't because covering his chest were the three still healing scars from the fully grown Demogorgon that had attacked him in the Upside Down, the one he had burned alive and torn the arm off, running off with it in hope that the blood of the beast would mask his own. He remembered the thick substance slathering itself across his chest, mixing with his own blood, dripping and rubbing into his wounds as he held it close as he ran, the severed limb pressed tight against his chest, heart in his throat. He remembered swallowing back mouthfuls of vomit, throat burning and eyes wet.

He'd spend his nights staring up at the ceiling, wondering what he had gotten himself into and if it would have never happened had he simply not gone to the pumpkin patch that day. But there was no changing what had happened, so he lived with it instead.

He was pretty sure Max knew something was up, but probably not the extent of it.

He could hear her when she would wake up in the middle of the night, the sound of her shuffling in the hall, going to the bathroom. He knew that it wasn’t that she just needed to relieve herself. He knew it was that she woke up from a nightmare. He saw it in the bags under her eyes as he took her to school the next day, saw it in the way her shoulders would hunch whenever someone screamed, never able to relax completely.

He didn’t know what he could do to alleviate the stress she was under or undo what she had been forced to see when she had not understood the true gravity of what had been revealed to her until it was too late. He wished that it could’ve been possible for him to have prevented it all, but even if they had gotten along and even if he had remained a, sort of, decent—enough of one, anyway, that she wouldn’t have been scared shitless of him—brother, there was no way he could’ve prevented any of it. She would’ve still become friends with Dustin and Lucas, still would’ve developed a crush on one of them, and still would’ve been dragged into it all.

He couldn’t stop the inevitable, especially when it was in her personal life.

He hated himself for the part of him that snidely thought she deserved it—regardless of how small that part of him was now.

Instead, he bought her a notebook and told her to write her thoughts in it every time she woke up from a nightmare or anything of that ilk. He told her that it would help, that with that physical memoir of her pain she’d be able to work through the trauma a lot easier. He told her that it would help her process it all.

She believed him which is really all he could’ve hoped for, and she no longer went to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

He did his best not to feel ill when she fell asleep on the couch next to him when Neil and Susan were out and woke up with a wild look on her face, racing to grab the notebook and opening it up to the last few pages—the only blank pages—and beginning to write. He had instead switched the program to some dumb cartoon before getting her hairbrush and settling in to braid her hair, pushing away the mild vindictive glee and embracing the concern, shrugging off the shiver that went down his back.

 

 

 

“It’s worse than I thought,” he whispered, leaning against the side of the car, Joyce next to him, blowing out the smoke that filled his lungs as he passed the cigarette over to Joyce who inhaled slowly, looking at the area in front of them with a furrowed brow. “I had to buy her another one.”

“Another one,” Joyce repeated, flicking the lip of the cigarette and letting the ash flutter to the ground, passing it back to him, and he could feel her eyes on him as he took in another lungful of smoke. “Have you talked to her about it all?”

He gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, looking down at the ground, scuffing his toe against it slightly. “Not really. She doesn’t—well, I don’t—it’s just,” he sighed, taking a second inhale before scrubbing his hands over his face after passing off the cigarette. “We’re not there yet.” Sometimes he hated how open he had gotten with Joyce. It made him feel exposed, like a nerve. It made him struggle to get a sentence out as he struggled against the onslaught of vulnerability encroaching on his being, mind warring between being nonchalant and being honest.

Joyce gave a small hum, looking over at him. “The important thing is that you’re trying. Keep at it and you guys will reach that point soon,” she assured, but Billy found himself doubting that, his lips pursing. He shook his head as Joyce tried to pass the cigarette back, pushing away from the car and looking over to the diner they were in front of.

“Shall we eat?”

She blinked, taking a last pull of the cigarette before throwing it onto the ground, nodding at him with a smile, and they both turned to head into the diner at last.

 

 

 

“Fu—leave me alone, dad,” Billy grumbled, trying to pull himself away from the man’s grip, swallowing down the bile that rose inside of him. He regretted the words already, but they had already left his lips, so there was really nothing he could do about it. His father’s hand clamped down on his shoulder harder, blunt nails digging in, his other hand coming up to grab his jaw, heel of his palm pressing hard against his throat, making him struggle to pull his head down to protect the fragile area.

“What did you say?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice already breathless, whatever confidence he had reduced to nothing in a matter of seconds, stumbling backwards as Neil pressed forward, grunting as the kitchen counter ground into the small of his back as he reached it.

Neil cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry, _sir_.”

His hold loosened, gentling, making Billy’s mind stutter, making his insides churn. He forced himself to meet Neil’s gaze, see the steel and _hate_ in his eyes, take in the hard line of his jaw. He forced himself to remember that his father hated him for one reason or another, forced himself to process that, to recognize the gentler hand gripping his jaw and pressing his head back was still hurting him and that they were deceiving him—but Neil couldn’t stop his face contorting in rage, couldn’t keep how much he abhorred Billy out of his eyes.

“Where were you yesterday?”

“I had a date,” he got out shakily, lashes fluttering and eyes flicking up to the ceiling before looking back at Neil. It wasn’t a lie—not really—except he was pretty sure spending his day with a record did not count as a date. Work was work, though, and he really couldn’t afford to miss a shift—not if he wanted to leave this house, leave Neil.

A part of him wondered what Max would do, but Max would be fine. Neil didn’t go after her. Neil liked her. He just didn’t like _him_. Maybe it was that he had his mother’s eyes and her hair, or maybe it was that he cared about how he looked, or maybe it was that his jeans weren’t loose enough. He didn’t know the exact reason. It changed every time the man lost it. The one thing that remained the same, though, was the concept of lessons.

He had to learn—that was what Neil said.

“You knew Susan and I were going out.”

“Max was at a friend’s house—”

“You were supposed to chaperone.”

“She’s _thirteen_ , dad.”

“You’re supposed to look out for her—”

“She’s about to have a birthday—”

“She’s your _responsibility_ —”

“She’s going to be fourteen soon!”

“Don’t you dare raise your voice at me; she’s your _responsibility_!”

The sound of the slap echoed throughout the room, Neil’s hand a strong grip around his jaw and the upper part of his throat. His swallowed, feeling the pressure increase on his throat as his Adams apple bobbed, making him let out a long breath through his nose.

“Where she goes, you go—no exceptions. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” he ground out, only letting himself relax when Neil left the room, sagging against the counter. He listened to the front door shut and the sound of a car engine revving as his father pulled out of the driveway, probably talking to Susan while Max looked out the window silently. They were going out for a family dinner while Billy stayed home to finish a project—a project that did not exist but he made up in order to get some time alone.

He sighed, shoving himself away from the countertop and moving sluggishly to the bathroom, taking stock of his face. The place his dad hit was red and ached, but it wouldn’t bruise or swell, so he left it as it was, instead moving to take a shower and take his mind off of the altercation.

A part of him wondered if his father suspected that he had a job. It would explain why he kept trying to limit his time outside of the house unsupervised. But there was nothing to indicate his employment situation. He would still ask for gas money and pay that back in doing chores and being a ‘good’ son—or, at least, his father’s approximation of one—and would do as he was told whether he wanted to or not. He wouldn’t buy anything that cost more than what he had been given and anything he bought with his own money was hidden from his father.

It was probably the concept of his dates. A date was his number one excuse for not being in the house, but his dad was a skeptical person—and a _nosy_ one on top of that. He probably was asking around, got wind that Billy wasn’t going on nearly the amount of dates that it would seem or some such thing. Or maybe he didn’t like that he couldn’t be certain what kind of person Billy was going out with, what they looked like, their hair color, skin color, genital area—things Neil considered important.

He sighed, feeling the water from the showerhead drip down his back, blinking open his eyes and looking down at his feet, watching the water swirl down the drain. He could feel the anger simmering inside of him, hidden under a thin layer of indifference, getting thinner by the second as he kept thinking about the whole situation.

He wanted to go out and break something—anything.

Inhaling deeply, he brought his shaking hands up and pushed his wet hair back and out of his eyes. It had definitely grown longer, longer than he had initially planned to let it, but he didn’t have the energy to cut it. It looked fine, so why alter it?

Shutting off the tap, he grabbed his towel and aggressively dried himself off, settling on shoving his hand into a bag of ice as a solid alternative to going out and breaking anything.

He wished there was an ocean by Indiana.

There, obviously, wasn’t.

 

 

 

“Lucas’ mom asked if you would be okay hanging around on Thursday,” Max said as she got into the car after bidding her friends farewell. “His parents are going out on a date night and they’re trying to find a babysitter.”

“And you suggested me?”

She shook her head, watching the trees go by before turning her blue eyes to fix on him. “No,” she finally said out loud, shrugging her shoulders a bit. “Lucas did.”

He blinked slowly, sliding his gaze over to fix on her, watching the very same expression of confusion that was undoubtedly on his face present itself on hers. “Lucas did,” he repeated, partially for confirmation and partially because he hoped it would make more sense if he said it.

It didn’t.

She nodded and they both returned their attention to the road, lips pursed.

“Alright,” he responded with as he pulled up to their house, putting the gear in park and turning to meet Max’s confused gaze.

“Alright, what—oh—you’ll watch us?”

He shrugged.

“His little sister will be there, too—Erica.”

Inside he could feel his longing to simply sleep increase, but he pasted on a little smirk on the outside, giving another shrug. “The more the merrier, right,” he responded with, watching Max’s hesitant expression slowly melt into one of relief and happiness, if a bit reserved.

“Great,” she breathed out. “I’ll tell Lucas tomorrow.”

He nodded and watched her get out of the car, her posture relaxed—more relaxed than it had been in the last few weeks—and he sighed, closing his eyes and scrubbing his hands over his face. What was he going to do, he wondered, letting out a breath before getting out of the car, as well, and heading inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! <3


	15. o15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry for disappearing, but a lot has been happening. I have to find a place to live and move in just, a maximum of, two months, I have three final projects I'm working on for classes, I have three major final exams I'm studying for, I've gotten a job and have been doing that whilst doing everything else, and my physical health hasn't been doing completely well these last few weeks (although my mental health is doing pretty solid, all things considered).
> 
> So, I'm very sorry for the lateness of this chapter. It's a bit longer than usual as a gift.
> 
> (This chapter is one of the harder ones I've had to write, so, whilst I love read your comments, I would ask that you think before commenting if you have the intention of commenting anything rude.)

The Sinclair’s were a nice family overall, if Billy was honest. Mister and missus Sinclair clearly loved each other a lot, sharing smiles and looks, portraying a really happy couple that wasn’t just a farce but genuine. It explained why Lucas had turned out so well, something Billy would readily admit to thinking despite how a part of him wanted to hold the words back and murder them in his mind. Changing for the better meant being honest, right?

His little sister, however, was a mystery.

Billy thought that maybe she had gotten her sass from her mom, but Mrs. Sinclair wasn’t as sassy as her little girl, or maybe she had outgrown the sass. Who knew? All he knew was that he had to watch that ball of sass along with his sister and her sort of, kind of, he’s not sure if they’ve made it official yet, boyfriend.

He hopes they haven’t made it official yet.

They were too young to be having boyfriends and girlfriends, in his astute opinion.

_He_ hadn’t even had a romantic partner at that age.

He listened carefully as Mrs. Sinclair gave him a run-down of the rules of the house and where everything was. She seemed nervous, but put together at the same time, a wonderful combination that spoke of a good mom—but also of a woman who really wanted to have a nice night out for once. She smelled like vanilla and moved with a rhythm Billy could only remember people in California capable of moving with.

It made his chest ache.

“Okay, I think that’s everything,” she finally sighed, still looking mildly concerned, but there was really nothing Billy could do about that except give her a warm smile and assure her that he was pretty sure that was everything and that he would ask Lucas if it turns out she forgot something. She seemed to be appeased by the words, thankfully, and she gave a small smile, hugging both of her kids and giving them each a kiss. “I’ll see you both later. _Behave_ ,” she warned, smiling at both of them, but with sternness in her eyes that booked no argument.

His chest gave a throb.

Once she and Mr. Sinclair were out the door, Billy let his shoulders slouch, turning to face the three kids behind him. He could already feel a headache brewing and he knew that it would certainly be a test of his patience.

“Will you guys behave?”

Lucas nodded his head, Max mimicking the motion. They went into the other room to watch the television and talk, leaving Billy alone with the one person who had not responded to his question.

Erica Sinclair was sassy, but she also seemed sweet with a heart as big as her brother’s and her parents. She was still an enigma, though, he settled on as she seemed to size him up where he was leaning on the kitchen counter, trying not to make eye contact. He wasn’t good with kids, had never been, and taking care of one who was younger than Max seemed a challenge to simply think about, let alone actually do.

He couldn’t believe Lucas had actually vacated the room and left them alone.

He expected a lot more distrust, but, apparently, the kid had taken his apology—that he was meaning more with each day that went by—to heart and was doing his share to accept Billy and his attempts to change. It was worrying, to say the least.

“Do you know how to draw?”

He blinked, looking over at the little girl who had her arms crossed over her chest, hip cocked, looking like four feet of pure feistiness and control.

He decided he liked her.

He also decided to keep that to himself.

He gave a shrug of his shoulders in response, watching her frown a bit before she was turning on her heel and walking out of the room. Billy wasn’t really sure if she wanted him to follow, so he settled on remaining in the kitchen, wondering what on earth he was going to do with his time until—what time did he have to have Max home by even?

Neil hadn’t said.

Fuck.

Sighing, he walked over to the living room, poking his head in and rapping his knuckles against the wall to get Max and Lucas’ attention. “What time do we have to be home by, again?”

Max looked away from the television, pursing her lips, her gaze flicking to meet Lucas’. Billy sighed as he let Max try to remember, looking behind himself as he heard clattering, watching Erica Sinclair march into the room with a pile of papers and some crayons, a little folder beneath it all. He returned his attention back to the living room to see Max smiling at Lucas before her gaze looked back up at him.

“Eight,” she responded, and he gave a nod before returning to the kitchen. The Sinclair’s would be home by then. They said they’d be home by seven, seven thirty at the latest. Eight was pretty late for Neil to be okay with Max staying out on a Thursday when they class tomorrow, but he was labor, not management, so he decided to not care.

“What are you doing,” he finally let out as he walked back over to the kitchen table to find Erica spreading out her papers, a pencil in hand, crayon set neatly to the side, folder beneath her pages.

“You don’t seem like you do well in school, but I need help, so you’ll draw and help me if I need it.”

Billy cocked an eyebrow, and she cocked two back.

Taking a glance at the clock, he sighed, deciding that it wasn’t a battle worth fighting, walking over and pulling out a chair, grabbing a blank piece of paper and a crayon and starting to draw while Erica Sinclair began working on her homework.

“Why’s your hair like that?” Erica finally broke the silence, pausing in her homework to look over at Billy who had been making a rendering of one of the beaches in California, the sea rising up onto the sand, the sky painted an array of colors as the sun set.

“Why’s _your_ hair like that?”

“’Cause I’m black,” Erica responded simply, brown eyes looking up at him. “Your turn,” she graced him with, propping her chin on her hand.

“I like it this way.”

“No boys I know where their hair like that.”

Billy shrugged his shoulders. “That’s because they’re from Hawkins,” he settled on instead of saying that they’re a ton of dumb fucks who don’t know how to do hair for the life of them. He hated small town men. They lacked so much imagination the majority of the time. It was just another reason he missed Cali.

“You’re not?”

“I’m from California.”

“Is that it,” she asked, motioning to the drawing Billy had been crafting. He nodded, watching her looking at it critically. “Why’s it in dots?”

“It’s called pointillism. It’s an art form.”

She looked at it and nodded.

“I didn’t know many of your kind that wore their hair like that,” Billy mumbled as he set about continuing making the sky above the ocean in his drawing.

“My kind,” Erica repeated with a frown.

Billy winced internally. That was probably something he wasn’t supposed to have said. Was it something he wasn’t supposed to have said? People would say things like that— _Neil_ would say things like that. He inwardly cringed. Fuck, it was probably a bit of Neil in him talking, the parts that had retained the lessons Neil beat into him despite how little he wanted to. “Blacks—although I only knew a lot of the beach goers, and the rockers,” Billy responded, swallowing thickly.

“Did they wear their hair like you?”

“Some of them,” he admitted, pausing in his drawing as he thought. “But your hair is too different from mine.”

Erica hummed. “White people hair is thin.”

Billy snorted. “Most of ours, yeah,” he couldn’t help but laugh. He didn’t feel as offended as he thought he maybe should have. A part of him reared back at the implication that white people were flawed in comparison to a black person, but he stamped that down, looking at Erica.

He tried to tell himself that was just Neil talking, but he could tell he had absorbed too much to be able to just say it was only Neil.

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, considerately. She was different from the narrative supplied to him at a young age. She didn’t fit the thug description he had been force fed, neither did her family. She was just a kid, like he had been, like Max was, but she happened to be black. It was an opposite to what Neil had told him growing up, always griping about how ‘those vermin’ were always going around shooting each other and fucking shit up. Those words fit the image of where he had lived, the darker corners of the area where shit would go down and the majority of people would turn the other way.

Hawkins, though—it challenged that narrative. It didn’t have a lot of black people, but the ones it did have weren’t scum of any sort. They were kind and smiled at Billy even when he found himself eying them in mild distrust and confusion. They walked with a rhythm not unlike the Latinos in Cali, and their long fingered hands were warm and strong.

He found himself being glad for the broken narrative, one of the few benefits of moving to bum-fuck Indiana.

He wished it would change things in him faster, though.

But it was progress, and that was the important thing.

Erica nodded in what seemed to be approval before poking him with her pencil and requesting help on the question she was working on.

 

 

 

When mister and missus Sinclair returned home from the dinner it was to find Erica trying to explain to Billy something, which they thankfully didn’t hear. It was awkward enough in Billy’s opinion that he had been asking a literal child about people of her race because he no longer knew what was right in his head.

He knew what he had experienced and he knew what Neil told him, two vastly different things, but they had somehow merged in his head and left everything muddled. But Max was friends with one of the few black people in the tiny town of Hawkins, and he wanted to do what he could to be better.

Getting his facts straight seemed like a good place to start.

“Thank you, again, for watching them,” Mr. Sinclair told him, shaking his hand. His grip was strong and warm, but there was a gentleness to it that showed his kindness. It felt nothing like Neil’s grip.

“It was no problem. I hope you had a lovely night.” He looked back at Max who was approaching the door with Lucas at her side, still talking. He could hear Mrs. Sinclair conversing quietly with Erica who had taken his drawing of a beach in California because she thought it was cool. “Max, time to go,” he called over and she looked up at him, a sort of dejected look coming over her face.

“Going,” she called, and Billy bid good-bye to the Sinclair’s before heading out to wait in the car. The clock read a quarter till eight and the notion of that made him nervous. That gave them fifteen minutes to get home if Max left the house now, which she seemed to be doing if her emerging from the door was anything to go by. She walked over to the car, climbing in and closing the door. “Let’s go.”

“Alright,” he hummed, pulling out of the driveway and heading home.

 

 

 

He had known that eight was too late. He should’ve fucking known.

_Dammit, Maxine._

At least Neil had the decency to wait until the weekend to tear into him.

Neil wasn’t physical this time, surprisingly. He had Billy come home after dropping Max off at the arcade, instructing him to inform Max that Neil would be the one picking her up—he took the liberty of telling her that it would be best if she removed herself from the group, party, whatever, fifteen minutes before Neil was supposed to show up just to be safe; she didn’t get why she should have to—and sat Billy down at the kitchen table, sitting across from him.

This was always somehow worse.

The disappointment and hatred in his gaze always made Billy feel sick—made his stomach churn and his eyes burn. He didn’t understand why he cared so much, but whether he understood it or not, the fact remained that he did.

He _cared_ despite how much he wanted not to.

It shouldn’t matter what Neil thought, but Neil was his father despite how he treated him. And he deserved the treatment the majority of the time, so why should he hate Neil?

He shook those thoughts off, trying to keep his mind clear.

Neil didn’t love him—he knew that.

Neil didn’t treat him right—he knew that.

Neil hurt him— _he knew that._

He knew all of these things, but they got muddled in his head, mixed with the lies and the deceit and the longing of a childhood that never quite happened, a child who wanted to just be accepted and loved by his father.

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t know how long had passed, but the burning in his eyes was becoming worse and a lump seemed to form in his throat, making the words hard to choke out. He wished it hadn’t been so difficult to get the words out, but it had.

He didn’t like the look on Neil’s face when he said it, though—a mixture of smug satisfaction and the same hatred, derision in the curl of his lip.

“I want you to go on a drive.”

He blinked, forcing back the wetness in his eyes. “What?”

Neil’s eyes were hard, lacking any form of sympathy or regret or love. “I want you to stand up, get in your car, and drive—drive until you’re out of gas. And then you’re going to get out of that car and walk to the nearest gas station, get just enough gas to get you back here, and come back. And when you come back, I want you to give me your keys.”

“What? Dad, no, you can’t—”

“Did that sound like a suggestion?”

Neil’s voice echoed throughout the room, the chair he had been sitting on toppling back. Billy could feel his muscles quivering, his heart pounding in his chest, vision swimming. “No, sir,” he managed to get out, priding himself on the steadiness that seized his voice as he stood up on stiff legs, walking to the door and heading out to go to his car, pulling out of the driveway, putting it in drive, and driving away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you thought in the comments below! <3 (remember what I said at the top notes)


	16. o16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, guys! I'm very sorry for the long, long, long wait you have had to endure for this chapter to come out. I swear, it wasn't intentional. I have been so exhausted recently, though. I have been working non-stop, I had to wrap up final projects and essays and then my final exams. I also got sick and was dealing with that, and, on top of everything, I'm moving right now and we have less than a week to be out of our apartment before we're kicked out, so I've been dealing with that.
> 
> However, this story will be finished! Rest assured that I have no intention of abandoning it and, if things go well, I should have it finished this month in my drafts and updates should be more constant (this is, of course, in the best case scenario which is what I'm hoping for). In the mean time, please accept this next chapter. I sincerely hope the next one will not take over a month to get to you all.
> 
> Love you all, and I hope you enjoy!

His feet were killing him by the time he had returned to his car and he was fairly certain they were bruised by the time he slumped into bed, muscles aching. His mind was tired; his body was tired. He could barely think straight, vision blurry as he looked at the far wall blearily. He thought a strong hand might have carded through his hair, but he wasn’t sure, slipping into unconsciousness easily.

When morning came, his feet were smarting something fierce, his teeth gritting against the pain as he scrubbed his hands over his face, irritation already rising. He looked down at himself, taking note that he had fallen asleep with his clothes on, rumpled and wrinkled, and he sighed, stretching his arms over his head.

“Billy,” Max called from the door, and he jerked, looking over at the still shut door. “I’m going to be late.”

He heard heavier footsteps approaching, and his stomach twisted in anxiety as he forced himself to his feet, swallowing thickly against the sharp bolts that shot up his feet and legs, nearly making his knees buckle.

“Don’t worry about it, Max. I’ll drive you today. Your brother’s not feeling well,” he heard Neil say through the door, listened to Max’s acquiescence as she moved away from the door, Neil not following. The door opened and Neil walked in, closing it behind him to regard Billy with hard eyes. “Your car’s out of gas, right?”

“Yes, sir,” he whispered, throat aching for some reason. He reached into his pocket for his keys, muscles tensing to stop the shake building in his fingers are he held them out to his father, not wanting to give them up, but knowing that it wasn’t worth the fight.

“You’re going to need to go get gas, right?”

He paused; sweat beading at the nape of his neck, keys giving a small jingle as a slight tremor made it to his fingers. He wondered if this was some sort of test as he spoke, “yes, sir.”

“Go to the gas station you went to yesterday. The fresh air will do you good.”

From the steel in Neil’s eyes, Billy knew it wasn’t a suggestion. His feet gave a sharp throb in response to the words as if to remind him of their predicament. He felt like crying, but he held it in, bottled it up and shoved it down. “Yes, sir.”

“Wait till nine. Everyone will be in school then.”

With those parting words, Neil left, closing the door behind him. He felt like throwing up, but there was nothing in his stomach to throw up, so he swallowed down the bile that rose, let his arm with the keys still in his hand drop, and turned his attention to making it back to his bed without being overcome by the pain. Slumping down on the mattress, he carefully lifted his feet off the ground, not even entirely sure he wanted to take off his shoes at this point. He’d just have to put them back on and putting them back on would just add to the pain.

He didn’t dare to move as he waited for the clock to hit nine before shoving himself his feet, gritting his teeth, and heading out. He pondered quickly maybe going to Joyce and asking to borrow her car for a few short minutes, her place of work a lot closer than the gas station he had trekked to the other day, but he quickly discarded the thought. Neil would find out. He wasn’t sure how, but he would.

He always did.

 

 

 

His car was filled and he was entrusted to drive Max to school Tuesday. He wasn’t sure why Neil didn’t follow through on taking his keys, but he decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially not with his feet hurting so much he wasn’t sure he could run, or even walk, away if he questioned Neil and the man came at him.

He didn’t mean to return to being rude, but when Max reached for the stereo controls, Billy just barely managed to avoid reaching over and grabbing her wrist to halt her, instead gritting out that she better not touch it. He could see the hurt in her face out of the corner of his eyes, could see the distrust returning.

He ended up having to pull the car over and get out, puking in the grass from the sudden ill feeling that seized him at the sight.

“I thought dad said you were feeling better,” Max said from the side, having gotten out of the car, edging a bit closer to him, but he quickly held up a hand to halt her movement. He couldn’t trust himself today, the pain and annoyance and anger at Max for having lied to him and being the cause of all the events that transpired mixing in his head and making it hard to keep his emotions in check.

“He was wrong,” he grumbled, spitting the remaining liquid out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I need you to not,” he sighed, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to work through the mess in his head that was making him feel so erratic, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes. He kept feeling the phantom of weight of a hand in his hair, and it made his stomach churn. “Just don’t today, Max, okay? I can’t today—I can’t,” he finally got out, tongue feeling heavy in his mouth, the words almost impossible to spit out.

Max was quiet for a moment before he heard her shifting in her spot. “Okay,” she finally stated and when he looked over, there was no hatred or anger in her eyes, but a sort of pride. He didn’t know what she had to be proud about, especially in regards to him, but she looked happy for some reason. “School,” she asked after a bit.

Billy thumbed out a cigarette and lit it up, taking a deep breath, letting the false warm fill him and wash out the taste of vomit that he would fix with some gum as soon as he got in the car. He stood there on the side of the road for a few more minutes before he nodded at last, stubbing out the cigarette and getting in, the ride quiet the rest of the way to school.

 

 

 

One of the weirdest things Steve will admit to ever bearing witness to—well, that he can admit to people outside of the handful that know the extent of the crazy that goes on in Hawkins—is Tommy pressing a napkin under Billy’s nose, brow furrowed in concern. It was lunch and Steve was sitting with Nancy and Jonathan, as had become the norm, and he glanced over at Billy where he sat with Carol and Tommy to see the male grabbing his bag only for Tommy to stop him and press the napkin to his nose.

He watched Billy’s brow furrow, saying something, looking annoyed, but Tommy said something back that had Billy’s brow furrowing more, but not in anger. Confusion crossed his face as he took over holding the napkin, peeling it away to look at it before pressing it back, shouldering his bag.

He couldn’t hear what Tommy and Billy said, but Carol’s voice carried in a way theirs didn’t.

“It’s probably just how dry it’s been,” she intoned, taking a sip from her drink. He watched Billy nod, probably agreeing even as he walked away with a bored wave over his shoulder.

Steve idly wondered how close they all were, but he doubted it was very. He had heard what they had said about Billy while he had been missing, when the news that he had been in a car accident spread, when he came back after roughly a month. They clearly weren’t that close to him, although they seemed to be when they hung out.

He wondered if they had done the same thing behind Steve’s back.

The thought hurt for some reason, despite everything that had happened between them. Tommy was a dick, but he had considered him a friend—or, at least, what he considered to be one at that point, anyways—and the idea that they had treated him like they treated Billy when he wasn’t around still sent a pang through him.

“Steve, are you even listening?”

He blinked, turning to meet Nancy’s gaze, one of her eyebrows cocked in question. He couldn’t help but flush a bit in embarrassment, taking a bite of his sandwich while he shook his head negative bashfully. He hadn’t meant to space out, but he couldn’t help it sometimes.

“Honestly, Steve,” Nancy sighed, but her voice held fondness. Jonathan looked amused as Steve ducked his head sheepishly, wanting to disappear in his carrot sticks. “I was asking if you want to come with the gang to mini-golf.”

“Mini-golf,” he repeated, shoving more of his sandwich into his mouth.

“Yeah,” Jonathan cut in while Nancy just gave Steve an amused frown. “My mom’s going to be there, too, since Will’s going, so we can all hang out separate from the boys,” Nancy cleared her throat and Jonathan shook his head a bit in mock annoyance, “and El and Max.”

“Sure, why not,” he agreed around a bite of his sandwich, hand coming up to shield his mouth from sight, chewing slowly.

“Good,” Nancy cheered, smiling.

Steve wouldn’t have been able to say ‘no’ even if he had wanted to. There was no mini golf place in Hawkins, but there was one in the next town over. He and Nancy were no longer together romantically, but he knew that one of Nancy’s ways of coping was through leaving Hawkins. Most plans she made that involved having to go to the next town over or anywhere outside of Hawkins were made because she felt the need to get away, to leave the craziness and fear behind for a little bit.

He couldn’t ignore that and not be there for her.

 

 

 

There was something about seeing Will’s smile as they drove down the road towards the mini golf course that made Joyce’s heart feel light. His smiles had been more frequent as the months passed, but after the incident with Billy, the smiles had disappeared a bit. Lately, thought, they had been making a comeback, and Joyce relished in every single one that she caught sight of.

She hadn’t originally been onboard with the idea of mini golf. It was out of town and having all the kids there felt a bit like pushing their luck, but the sight of Will’s smile and how his whole demeanor had brightened at the idea had convinced her to agree. It was a bit sad how the small, simple things like playing mini golf with friends was enough to make her son happier than he had been in weeks, but it was the reality they had to deal with. As much as she hated it, her child had suffered through two severely traumatic events.

It was a miracle he had retained any part of who he had been before it all.

“Max says Billy threw up today,” Will said, looking over at her. “Apparently he wasn’t feeling completely better.”

“Oh, that’s not good,” Joyce responded, watching Will fiddle with the strap of his bag between his legs. “Does that mean she’s not coming?”

“No, she is. She said Steve’s going to drive her since he’s already bringing Dustin. Billy might pick her up. She’s not sure.”

Joyce tried not to imagine any scenario that would make Billy unable to pick his sister up, but the images rose in her mind despite her best efforts—like how whenever fear flickered across Will’s face her mind would conjure up the worst reasons for the fear to be on his face, even when the reason for the fear would be something as mundane as her playfully threatening to make Will eat his most hated vegetables.

“How will she know if Billy’s picking her up or not?”

Will shrugged. “I didn’t think to ask. She knows, though, probably.” They lapsed into silence for a beat before he shifted in his seat to look up at Joyce. “How was work?”

She pushed the images playing in her mind away, focusing on the road and on Will next to her, pulling on a smile and beginning to tell him about her day at work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm very sorry for the long wait.
> 
> Feel free to let me know what you thought in the comments below! <3


	17. Important

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not a chapter, but some important things to explain my constant disappearances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll delete this when I release the next chapter, but this is just some explanation till then.

Hey, guys. I’m really sorry about my continuing bouts of silence and the disappearances. To be honest, a lot of factors have been attributing to this. I’ve been dealing with getting ready for college and financial aid, as well as work, and my physical health has been deteriorating. I’m getting an MRI tomorrow, and I have a couple other tests I have to get done soon, and I haven’t been feeling too well over the last few days (severe nausea, vomiting, and headaches). I’m really sorry I haven’t updated in so long. I’ve been working on the next few updates, but it’s slow going even though I’ve been doing my best. I’ll try to have the next chapter up ASAP, but I can’t promise anything. As soon as I’m ready to post it, though, I’ll delete this little note chapter. I just wanted to let you all know what was going on and why I’ve been kind of MIA.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really sorry, guys.


	18. o17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't really think straight right now, but I hope this is fine.

April continued on in a blur, Billy’s mind becoming hazier with every passing day. He didn’t know what was going on, but the nausea from the mini-golf day remained a present factor throughout the days that followed. He managed to keep his anger at bay through sheer force of will that took almost all of his energy, making him interact with Max less than he wanted to.

The last thing he wanted was to lose his cool, though, to see the fear return to her eyes that had just started showing a bit of happiness whenever they talked.

Life progressed slowly, a crawl that had him relaxing amidst chaos and tensing amidst silence. It was a conflict of reactions that left his head pounding and his teeth gritting against the dizziness. He was honestly beginning to think he was coming down with something, a thought that had entered his mind after he had continued to feel fairly awful after getting to school that day—what he had dubbed in his mind ‘the puking day’—with Max, but he had dismissed it.

The power of the mind over the body—if he kept telling himself he wasn’t sick, then he wouldn’t be sick.

Despite the haze over his mind, though, he had been pretty lucid. Regardless of how lucid he was, though, he couldn’t exactly say how he ended up here, sitting on the branch of a tree, Harrington on the branch below him, the kids in the school field, having a blast attempting to play some ball game. Billy wasn’t even sure what it was, they were playing so poorly.

Max was beating them all, and he didn’t expect any less.

“Stop watching Wheeler, Harrington.”

Steve’s face tilted towards him, looking mildly offended. “Hey, I’m over her,” he grumbled defensively, and Billy couldn’t stop his lips from curling up in amusement a bit.

“It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies, though—stop it.”

“What _doesn’t_ give you the heebie-jeebies,” Steve muttered, but his eyes twinkled with mirth. Billy didn’t think he would ever understand the ability of these people to talk to him despite not having completely forgiven him or even liking him.

“Ice cream,” he answered resolutely, although the question had been rhetorical. The answer had Steve nearly tipping off of the branch from the guffaw of surprise that left him. A part of Billy was pleased at having elicited a positive reaction, but another part of him was wincing as the sound grated over his ears and made irritation spike in his chest.

He returned to being silent, watching the kids play, Max throwing the ball high and far, Lucas scrambling after it in an attempt to catch it. Being silent meant people wouldn’t talk to him, just like being mean meant the same thing.  People not talking to him meant he wouldn’t have to deal with the headache their sounds produced.

“Look at that fox over there,” Steve piped up after a bit, pointing over to the far edge of the trees, the quadruped easing closer. Billy frowned, looking at the creature, brow furrowed, chest aching. It was with a seeping chill that he straightened, abruptly swinging his legs over the tree branch.

“Get to the cars,” he hissed, dropping down, Harrington clambering off after him, a frown coloring his features.

“What—why?”

“That’s not a fox,” he gritted out, darting into the field and grabbing the back of Mike’s shirt, hauling him back and shoving him at the eldest Wheeler, scooping up Will in the process and gripping Max’s arm tightly. He passed the youngest Byers kid to the eldest, shoving Max at Steve as he looked back and saw Lucas running over to them, having darted after the ball Max had thrown.

The demo-dog that had been lurking at the edge of the tree line opened its petal maw, hunching and darting forward.

Billy didn’t think, legs pumping as hard as they could, launching himself at Lucas and shoving him out of the way as the demo-dog made contact, sharp teeth digging into his flesh. He felt his fingers dig into the slick, leathery skin, nails digging—digging deep—and tearing, teeth cutting through it, goo filling his mouth and sliding down his throat, throat convulsing around it even as the demo-dog let out a high cry of what he presumed was pain.

He lurched up in bed, kicking off the covers and shoving open the window as his abdomen convulsed, the acrid taste of vomit coating his tongue. The air outside was fresh and dewy like early morning air tended to be, filling his lungs with it. The smell of his puke, though, mixed with the freshness and made him gag all over again.

Sweat covered his body in a thin sheen, making him shiver as a slight breeze entered his room and brushed over his bare skin. He wasn’t entirely sure where the dream came from, why he had saved Lucas in his dream, why he had been talking to Harrington, why he had been anywhere near the kids.

He remembered the darkening of the sky—vaguely—and he remembered the pressure of the teeth digging into his flesh, the ache in his jaw as he forced it close around leathery flesh and dig until viscous liquid filled his mouth and slid down his throat because his hands were useless against it, and how was he supposed to fight against a creature his nails and fists did nothing against?

His body shook with the force of another dry heave, and his fingers tightened their hold around the edge of the window sill, spitting the remainder of the liquid in his mouth out, raising a hand to shakily push his hair back from his forehead, focusing bleary eyes at the world in front of him.

Beady eyes from the darkness met his and he jerked back with flailing limbs, legs unsteady underneath him, heart beating heavily inside his chest. He jerked the window closed and shut the blinds, swallowing thickly, ignoring the acid taste of vomit, as he tried to calm his racing heart. His knees gave out against the onslaught of anxiety that flooded him, and he fell back onto his bed heavily.

His bed felt too soft, though, like he was sinking and going to fall through and end up there—back in the Upside Down, curled up in a closet with pain spread over his body that wouldn’t leave, listening to the cries and not-quite silence that would fill up his conscious moments.

He found himself shoving off his bed, feeling the solidity of the floor beneath him as he pressed his back against the wall, dragging his blanket off the bed and wrapping it around himself, suddenly feeling far too cold despite his window being shut.

The room seemed too dark, but he refused to leave his spot on the floor to go turn on the light, instead burrowing deeper into the blanket he had wrapped himself in, trying not to cry despite the burn in his eyes.

 

 

 

“Max seems to be doing better,” Joyce commented carefully over coffee, watching how the boy before her downed his cup like it wasn’t scalding and probably burning his tongue, motioning for the waitress to fill up his cup again. There were dark circles under his eyes, and Joyce couldn’t figure out what had gone wrong. He had been doing fine, as far as she had been able to tell.

His head bobbed, this time cradling the mug in his hands, not downing it in one go like he had the first two. His eyes still had the same vibrancy to them, the same war going on in the blue depths, but his cheekbones were sharper, the line of his jaw more defined, his collar bones more prominent. It wasn’t by much, but just enough that let her know he hadn’t been eating as well as he had been before, although she didn’t doubt he had been keeping up with his exercise.

“You can talk to me, you know,” she whispered, wanting to be soothing, wanting to help, but despite the progress Billy had seemed to make, he was still skittish in some regards—most specifically when it came to talking about his problems. Reaching out, she kept her eyes on his face, waiting to see any sign of refusal before placing her hand on one of his, giving it a firm squeeze.

Billy didn’t respond for a bit, his gaze trained on the brown depths of his coffee, looking mildly ill. “I—how did Will cope? After—after being _there_ ,” he got out, voice rough from the burn of the coffee, eyes refusing to meet Joyce’s.

Joyce felt her chest tighten in agony, recalling the first days after that, the dreams, the panic. It tightened further to think that maybe Billy had been going through the same thing. “He didn’t, at first. He tried so hard to seem like everything was normal and fine. But, after a bit,” she swallowed thickly, remembering the sight her little boy’s eyes filled with tears as she held him tightly in her arms, “after a bit it got to be too much. He would have nightmares during the night, hallucinations during the day—he didn’t know what was real, what was fake, what was,” she cut herself off, pressing her eyes firmly shut against the burn so that she wouldn’t cry. Billy needed her help, and she was determined to give it to him.

“You don’t—you don’t have to keep going, Joyce. I’m sorry I brought it up—I shouldn’t have,” Billy whispered, eyes casting about quickly to make sure that no one was paying attention to them, but they had a habit of picking the least noticeable booth whenever they went to the diner.

She waved her free hand, pushing back her hair as she did her best to get her wits back. “It’s alright, it’s alright. I’m fine,” she hurried to assure him, voice only shaking slightly—a success, in her book. Pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead, she inhaled deeply before letting her eyes flutter open and look at Billy who was finally looking at her, concern on his slightly sharper features. She really needed to get some more food into him.

“Are you, though?”

She nodded her head, giving a little smile at his concern, the charm that she was so used to bleeding through. It was no wonder no adult had any clue the boy was suffering so much. “Yes,” Joyce hurried to confirm after realizing she had kept silent for a second too long. “Um, the point, though—the point is that he didn’t cope, not at first. But then I took him to go see a psychiatrist, one that worked with the lab and knew about all of this,” she gave a wave of her hand as she said it. She could see Billy’s expression shutter at the mention of a psychiatrist. “He helped Will a lot, in some ways, although he hated going.”

“I don’t want to see a psychiatrist,” Billy muttered, brow furrowing, looking even more conflicted and tired than when he had walked in.

“Oh, no, no, honey,” she gave his hand a warm squeeze, “you don’t have to see one. Look,” she waited till he met her gaze before continuing, “how about when you come over for dinner this Friday, you talk to Will. He can tell you what about going to the psychiatrist helped him and you can see if it helps you. How does that sound?”

She knew Billy hated being talked down to, but she couldn’t stop the maternal instinct building in her, seeing him look so tired and unsure, scared of his own shadow. When he nodded, it was as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders, and she smiled, the expression broadening as Billy finally turned his hand into hers and gave it a firm squeeze.

 

 

 

“You know, when you called me and told me to bring Hopper, this was not what I was expecting,” Steve commented idly, his tone nonchalant even though he looked mildly ill.

“Do I look like I was expecting to be committing murder tonight,” Billy hissed back in response.

The two of them continued to bicker in hushed whispers while Jim stepped closer to the mangled body lying on the grass ground, as far from Billy’s window as he could drag it without being seen, close enough to the road that Hopper would be able to move it into his trunk to transport to a barren area where they can burn the corpse.

“What even is it?” he asked finally, looking at the leathery yellow skin and the beady eyes staring sightlessly up at him, the clawed fingers, at the gaping hole in its chest where Billy had slammed his switch blade in and, apparently, dug.

Billy looked up from his small argument with Steve, arms crossed over his chest in just his shirt and some jeans he probably hastily threw on, beads of blood staining the fabric from the scratches the claws had left. “I thought—haven’t you guys seen one of these before?”

Steve peered closer at it, stepping closer to Jim as they both stared down at the new kind of being.

“No,” they both stated at the same time, and Billy cursed, carding his finger through his hair. “Well, take a fucking picture of it before you burn it, then—I want that body gone,” he grumbled, hands perfectly steady as they fell to his sides, something Jim decided to take note of even as he nodded, motioning for Steve and Billy to help him carry it to the car quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comment below <3


End file.
